98 
THE STRIPED HOUSAINEE MELON. 
ripe; it is of great moment to be .very accurate in the discrimina¬ 
tion of fruits, for such is the accumulation of varieties, and the un¬ 
certainty of written descriptions, that great confusion must otherwise 
prevail. 
The Striped Housainee is correctly described in the fourth para¬ 
graph of page 776, yet how very different must that appear from the 
fruit mentioned in the catalogue at page 830 of the Horticultural 
Register. The rind may be said to be greenish, but can the flesh be 
considered ivhite by any one who has seen the genuine fruit ? The 
weight too is said to be, three or four pounds. Now I venture to as¬ 
sert that, as a whole, this description in the Register is decidedly er¬ 
roneous, and that upon tolerably sure grounds. The seed I sowed 
was received from Mr. Knight himself, it came to me directed in his 
own hand writing, so did that of the Sweet Melon, of Ispahan, the 
fruit of which is very incorrectly described at page 830, inasmuch as 
the flesh is said to be green. The flesh of the Ispahan is nearly white, 
and of one unmixed tint, but that of the Striped Housainee is of 
three distinct shades, not one of which approaches to a white, pro¬ 
perly so called. 
The House in which I produced the fruit was, in the first instance, 
only twelve feet long; an addition, however, was made to it at one 
end, during the growth of the plants: this led to a singular result, 
which will hereafter be noticed. The height of the house at the 
back wall was seven feet: a walk two feet wide ran immediately 
within, and along this wall; and a flue nine inches broad, and about 
eighteen inches deep, including its base, was in front of the walk, its 
internal face forming the basis of the wall of a pit, that contained a 
leaf-bed three feet in depth. The back of the pit therefore, measur¬ 
ing from the inner face of the bricks, was three feet in advance of 
the wall of the house. 
The temperature of the leaves, oak and beech, was generally from 
75 to 82 degrees, rarely higher; and in this bed a few pine-apple 
plants were plunged. Hence the melons were to be trained over the 
space occupied by the pit wall, the flue, and walk; so as not to over¬ 
shadow the pines. The slope of the lights formed an angle of 25 
degrees, that is 2i degrees more than the fourth part of a quadrant 
or quarter circle. 
The limits afforded to my plants were too contracted to permit the 
stems to attain a sufficient perpendicular growth before they made 
their bend under the angle of the glass; which angle the advancing 
shoots ought always to follow correctly, at a distance of twelve or 
fourteen inches below the lights; because a full exposure to light, 
