AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 343 



There are some other similar melons — sucli for instance as the 

 Gheredale melon, which keeps all winter, and finally becomes in 

 its rind full of juice of an exquisite perfume. 



There is another fruit which I have seen no where else. It is 

 of the size of a large nut, with a bark like an onion skin, with a 

 flesh absolutely dry as a mealy potato and a decided vanilla taste. 



I regret that I could not send some peculiar wild ducks we have, 

 quite easy to tame, and singular color. They are red all over, 

 have a crest of metallic green splendor, and a curious keen cry. 



A German Society of Acclimation was established in Berlin 

 July 31, 1856. 



The Messrs. H. A. Graef & Son, of Brooklyn, exhibited a very 

 interesting contrivance of their own invention under the name of 

 " Parlor Conservatory." This consists in an elegant round flower 

 stand of about two feet diameter, with a border five inches deep, 

 in which are planted a collection of about eighty different plants 

 with the most distinctly different formed and colored foliage, 

 tastefully arranged, in very nutritious soil among living mosses 

 and lichens, and covered with a glass shade about eighteen inches 

 high. In the centre of this group of plants is a neat little cottage 

 of Parian, shaded by weeping and running plants. 



The exhibitors had charged themselves with the task to pro- 

 cure for the amateurs of flowers the gratification of ornamenting 

 their apartments with their favorites, without incurring the trouble 

 and inconveniences incident thereto. This they appear to have 

 accomplished in their "Pa^rlor Conservatory," in which the plants 

 are thriving most luxuriantlj^, and where they are protected from 

 the influences of their worst enemies, the dry air, the dust and 

 gas, and the sudden changes of temperature incident to dwellings, 

 and besides has the advantage of saving the trouble of watering, 

 the glass shade keeping the water from evaporating. The whole 

 is so tastefully arranged that it will be a most elegant ornament 

 for even the most luxuriously furnished parlor, into which they 

 seem destined to be very generally introduced. 



The members of this Club w^ere much pleased with it. It 

 resembles a separate w^orld, in which the dew and the rain seem 

 to alternate daily. It can be altered in the arrangement and orna- 



