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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 104, 1 May 1875, Page 2

About five miles from Timaru, on the Downs, there ore 250 acres of land which have been planted with 200,000 trees, comprising bluegum, redgum, willows, poplars, stringy-bark, and silver-wattle. These trees the proprietors (Messrs Scaly Brothers and Davidson) consider to be worth for posts and rails, at six-year-old 2s each (a very modest calculation), which brings their total valu9 to £20,000 sterling, to which may be added £2,000 sterling for 'the firewood contained iv the tops and branches. If the timber is cut at the proper time of the year, by a fresh growth it will become reproductive.

Hong Kong as it is. — We (N.Z. Herald) have had forwarded to us an " exchange," a nowspaper entitled the Hong Kong Times. We are very glad to have received this, because our preconceived ideas of Hong Kong are quite disabused. We knew that HoDg Kong was an island somewhere in the neighborhood of China Proper, and in the vicinity of the Canton river. We knew atso that, nominally it was a British settlement, and that its capital had been named Victoria. But we have never been able to disconnect Hong Kong with Mongolian women with feet much cramped up in small wooden shoes-, holding infinitesimal porcelain cups containing infinitesimal quantities of tea, while gazing with their almond-shaped ejea at a Chinaman crossing a bridge with a bamboo cane across his shoulders, at each end of which was suspended a small tea chest. We have always — we know not how or why — but we have always associated Hong Kong with a willow pattern plate; and we have not been able to help, nor should we havo been able to help it, had it not been for receiving bb an exchange the Hong Kong Times. Hong Kong appears to us to be more like Auckland, or Wellington, or Dunedin, than as being comprised in any partof the " Flowery Land." The advertisements in the first and third pages mention a steam ferry as running between two places, in a way quite as calm and deliberate as Messrs Holmes Brothers notify the running of the steamer Devonport between the Queen's Wharf and the North Shore. We have the Hong Kong Insurance Company, the Hong Kdng Brewery, and we have tbe Hong | Kong drapers and haberdashers selling off at 33£ per cent below cost price. We have a Medical Hall and dispensary, and a man who cautions people against giving credit to his wife, she baying left her home, &c. We have sewing machines, in the shape of Little Wonders, and "Excelsiors," with lock, stitch and a three years guarantee, to be taken back in exchaoge if not approved of. Hong Kong has a pawnbroker, and a loan office, and otber evidences of an advanced civilisation. So that when a young lady in future tells her lover to go to Hong Kong, so far as she is concerned, she should assure herself that she means what she says, in case he sho. -Id find tbe place so exceedingly pleasant as to leave him no desire in life to return back. There are local boards in Hong Kong, the members of which " walk into " each other just as they do iv Dunedin or Wellington. Hong Kong bas temperance lodges and Orders of Good Templars. Even n " Free and Eoßy " is advertised for tbe special amusement' of Europeau sailors. Yet it is solemnly recorded in the Hong Kong Times tbat before the Emperor's death a gigantic image of the goddess of smallpox was paraded round the city of Pekin in solemn procession, and then taken into the very bedroom of tbe dying youth, where it was worshipped and honored with many propitiatory offerings. As, however, the goddets continued obdurate, she was subjected

to a severe thrashing and finally burnt. We notice that " twins " are not at all uncommon to the ladies of Hong Kong.