324 CULTIVABLE PRODUCTIONS. August, which is one of the winter m'onths of New Zea land. The settler may, it is said, put green pease upon his table in ten months of the twelve. A crop of wheat and one of potatoes have been grown on the same piece of land at Port Nicholson within the year. Melons are cultivated by the natives in great abundance, and peach stones, scattered at random in various parts, have sprung up into groves, which are so prolific as to lead to the belief that were every colonist to adopt the rule of carry ing the seed of this fruit in his pocket, for the purpose of sowing indiscriminately in the course of his rambles, peaches would in eight or ten years become sufficiently plentiful to constitute an article of food for pigs. Among the vegetables the cultivation of which is to be strongly recommended to the colonists, is the kumera, or sweet potato, more difficult to rear, but far more nutritive and agreeable in flavour, than any kitchen vegetable grown in Europe. The taro, which is the tuberous root of a species of arum, is also worthy of attention as a useful and nutritious esculent; and the same remark is appli cable to the large root called by the natives Kaipakea. The common potato, which is now the chief article of subsistence of the New Zealanders, becomes better and more farinaceous the further south it is cultivated. That we could seldom get good potatoes at the Bay of Islands, was partly, I believe, owing to the warmth of the climate, and partly to the careless cultivation of the natives, who, to save trouble, very commonly leave a portion of one crop in the ground as seed for an ensuing one. The potatoes of the Chatham Islands and those of Van Dieman’s Land, being of a very superior description, should alone be planted by the colonists. With respect to turnips, carrots,