Private Gardens.

In the matter of private gardens to which the public are conditionally admitted, Auckland is almost entirely neglected; and in this respect visitors from Wellington are dimly conscious of a great want. There is nothing whatever which can be compared with McNab's, at the Hutt, or Young's Karori Gardens, or even with Higgenbotham's Kilbirnie Tea Gardens. Undertakings of this kind on a small scale were initiated in the days that are gone; but whether their failure to rise to importance is attributable to lack of enterprise in their proprietors, or lack of appreciation by the public, must be left undecided. At any rate, the absence of such gardens is to be deplored, for in none of the places mentioned under the last heading can a whole holiday be so enjoyably spent as at the above-named Wellington gardens, where visitors find pretty and secluded summer houses, tennis lawns, fish ponds, etc., and, if needed, the convenience of set meals and rooms with pianos, to say nothing of such delights for children as monkeys, swings, see-saws, and the like. Doubtless the many and varied attractions of Auckland's public holiday resorts would tend to make private speculation of the description referred to more than usually hazardous; but it would seem that there is room for something of the kind.