Solitude will be a thing of the past; for roads will be excellent, motors common, and every homestead will have its telephone. And just as kerosene lamps and wax candles superseded the tallow dips of the early settlers, so in turn will electric light reign, not here and there merely, but almost everywhere. Their main recreations will be shooting, fishing, motor-driving, riding, and sailing; for games--save polo--and pure athletics will be left to boys and to men placed lower in the social scale. They will read books, but are scarcely likely to care much about art, classing painting and music rather with such things as wood-carving and embroidery--as women’s work, something for men to look at rather than produce. But they will be gardeners, and their wives will pay the arts a certain homage. The furniture of their houses may seem scanty in European eyes, but will not lack a simple elegance. In their gardens, however, those of them who have money to spare will spend more freely, and on brightening these with colour and sheltering them with soft masses of foliage no mean amount of taste and skill will be lavished. These gardens will be the scenes of much of the most enjoyable social intercourse to be had in the country. Perhaps--who knows?--some painter, happy in a share of Watteau’s light grace or Fragonard’s eye for decorative effect in foliage, may find in the New Zealand garden festivals, with their music, converse, and games, and their framework of beauty, subjects worthy of art. [Illustration: COROMANDEL]