e in his condition. It is difficult to over-estimate the social
value of the work that has been done by building societies. In the
suburbs of the large towns you see whole townships built entirely by
these societies; every inhabitant of these townships in the course of a
few years becomes a proprietor, and the society further aids him by
making loans to him on mortgage of his property. It is the defect of
these townships that the houses are all as like one another as peas in a
pod--four-roomed squares or six-roomed oblongs built of red brick, and
with every detail exactly the same; but their plainness and similarity
does not detract from their manifest virtues.

Terraces and attached houses are universally disliked, and almost every
class of suburban house is detached and stands in its own garden. These
gardens are laid out much in the English fashion; but there is little
need of greenhouses, and unless you have water laid on to your lawn, it
is difficult to keep it green in summer. In Adelaide but few people try
to keep lawns; the summer sun is too scorching, and towards February and
March the gardens look dreadfully dried up. But on the other hand,
flowers of all kinds grow in abundance, and to a size which they rarely
attain in colder climates. The garden needs little attention beyond the
summer watering and you can get flowers all the year round. Fruit-trees
grow with wonderful rapidity and bear most abundantly.

With the aid of the hills you get several climates within a small area,
and in Adelaide especially the abundance of flowers and fruit is all that
can be desired. There is naturally some tendency to coarseness,
especially in the fruit. The price of labour makes it difficult to keep
large gardens in good order. For this reason few people keep large
gardens. Another thing that accounts for the smallness of the gardens
attached to middle and working-class houses, which are often no more than
patches, is the speculation in land. The smaller the portions into which
the speculator cuts up his building sections, the more he gets for them.
I myself on one occasion bought an eight-acre section of land in one
block for L1,100, cut it up into blocks of an eighth of an acre each, and
resold it within six weeks for a little over L2,000. This
land-speculation is quite a feature of Australian life, and at certain
periods it is difficult to lose money by it. Large gardens are generally
long leaseholds or freeholds belonging