Then in estimating how far New Zealand country life may be enjoyable and satisfying we must remember that it is mainly a life out of doors. On farms and stations of all sorts and sizes the men spend many hours daily in the open, sometimes near the homestead, sometimes miles away from it. To them, therefore, climate is of more importance than room-space, and sunshine than furniture. If we except a handful of mountaineers, the country worker in New Zealand is either never snowbound at all, or, at the worst, is hampered by a snowstorm once a year. Many showery days there are, and now and again the bursts of wind and rain are wild enough to force ploughmen to quit work, or shepherds to seek cover; but apart from a few tempests there is nothing to keep country-folk indoors. It is never either too hot or too cold for out-door work, while for at least one day in three in an average year it is a positive pleasure to breathe the air and live under the pleasant skies. The contrast between the station of the back-ranges and the country place of the wealthy freeholder is the contrast between the first generation of colonial life and the third. The lord of 40,000 acres may be a rural settler or a rich man with interests in town as well as country. In either case his house is something far more costly than the old wooden bungalow. It is defended by plantations and approached by a curving carriage drive. When the proprietor arrives at his front door he is as likely to step out of a motor-car as to dismount from horseback. Within, you may find an airy billiard-room; without, smooth-shaven tennis lawns, and perhaps a bowling-green. The family and their guests wear evening dress at dinner, where the wine will be expensive and may even be good. In the smoking-room, cigars have displaced the briar-root pipes of our fathers. The stables are higher and more spacious than were the dwellings of the men of the early days. Neat grooms and trained gardeners are seen in the place of the “rouse-abouts” of yore. Dip and wool-shed are discreetly hidden from view; and a conservatory rises where meat once hung on the gallows.