i62 JVotcs and Gleanings. 



growers pronounce it not only the most productive and salable, but the best vari- 

 ety known to them, others declare it to be absolutely worthless, or possibly 

 deserving of trial by those to whose palates a compound of muskmelon, squash, 

 and cucumber maybe acceptable ! Now, I am not in the least surprised at these 

 differences of opinion. In view of the exceedingly unstable character of all 

 hybrids, or sports between the large, netted muskmelon on the one hand, and 

 the green citron melon on the other, they are precisely what ought to have 

 been expected. Looking over the long catalogue of varieties which have come 

 under my observation within the last thirty or forty years, I find them, almost 

 without an exception, to have been short-lived in the extreme. Though they 

 gave early promise of future distinction and excellence, scarcely one survived a 

 decade of years, and all that is now left of them is the record of their names. 



In view of these facts, — though I confess I am sorry to say it, — I am some- 

 what sceptical with regard to the permanency of the Alton melon. To retain 

 its distinctive characters in their full perfection, will, in my opinion, j^rove a task 

 beyond the reach of human skill. The numerous complaints of failures, so gen- 

 erally attributed to impure or mixed seeds, are, in a large majority of instances, 

 manifestly unjust. The true cause, most unquestionably, lies in the natural ten- 

 dency of the fruit to change or variation, and here the grower should look alike 

 for the evil and remedy. 



A Greenhouse for a Short Purse. — The writer has a taste for the beautiful, 

 and I like the article. The facts he has given with regard to the construction and 

 cost of a miniature greenhouse will attract the attention of many of your readers. 

 Forty-five dollars ! Ah, Mr. Editor, I fear an expenditure so trifling would 

 secure for us at the North but a small measure of the beauty of blossom and 

 sweetness of perfume enjoyed by your correspondent under the sunnier skies 

 and milder climate of the Carolinas. 



Reading his graphic description, I admit a sigh escaped me for a like charm- 

 ing retreat, where " camellias slowly unlock their sculptured beauty, and azaleas 

 totter under great bouquets of color ; where callas lift their ivory couches 

 out of their green investiture, all fit for a fairy's sleep, and where tricolor 

 geraniums put on their wintry togam vjrsicolore;n ; where rhyncospermums 

 shake out their shining stars of snowy white on a background of rich, dark 

 green ; and where the lovely Persian cyclamen waves its thick array of mimic 

 mitres, fair and pure, above their blood-stained vines, for twelve weeks long ! " 

 A beautiful picture, truly ! sketched, too, at midwinter, from material produced 

 at so trifling a cost. Can anything like it be in reserve for us, in the midst of 

 howling storms and ahnost unbroken frost during nearly half of the year } 

 Would there might be. 



Perhaps you, Mr. Editor, or some one of your correspondents, could give the 

 readers of the Journal a plan for a cold grapery equally simple and economical 

 with that proposed by Mr. Denson for "a greenhouse for a short purse." 



Pear Cjclttire. — So Dr. Houghton has found out, by experience, a good many 

 things about pear culture not laid down in the books, as men who take hold of 

 almost any subject practically are very apt to. But he almost provokes me by 

 telling us, just as I was expecting some new light on this subject, that he has 



