ON FLOWER PEGS. 279 



the earth if proper peg's couhl be had cheap : witness the goose- 

 berry fanciers traininu" the cherished shoots near the earth, and 

 wide apart from one another, by means of hooks and props, and 

 I have seen this adopted by gardeners to get large fruit, as at 

 Bicton by Mr. Barnes, and surely no kind of trellis could be so 

 cheaply or so readily put down or taken up as a bundle of tent 

 hooks and forked pegs. In putting down these, the hooked peg 

 must always be placed outermost, and the fork between that and 

 the root ; for if this order is reversed, the shoot in turning up to 

 the light, which it always will do, leaves the prop loose, whereas 

 the hook being outermost becomes tighter by the upward 

 growth of the plant. Many of our most showy plants are greatly 

 improved in aj^pearance by having their long naked stems hid 

 and their flowers brought forward hj means of training ; but on 

 the other hand they look broken down if the flowers are pegged 

 to the earth. 



The accompanying woodcut will show the way in which one 

 peg is sawn out of another without waste, and another method 

 where the hook hole is punched or rather pinched with pincers 

 such as railway ticket-takers use, and shoe-makers have, and how 

 the remainder of the thin label or veneer is shaped into pegs by a 

 few cuts of the shears. The stronger pegs are made by sawing 

 and boring according to the lines shown on the section. 



That pegs will be made by machinery of fair proportions and 

 marvellously cheap there cannot be a doubt, but this is not the 

 place and gardeners are not the people to inquire into the work- 

 ing of steam-engines and circular saws for cutting wood into 

 veneers. I have made the articles here described of various 

 sizes, and that with a few inexpensive tools, — indeed, with little 

 else than a saw. 



Pegs thus made of seasoned wood are verj superior to those in 

 common use, since they admit of hammering to fasten them, and 

 when they are inserted, the damp earth gets firmer by the swell- 

 ing of their tissue. In order to arrive at the true character of 

 these pegs, we must take the actual dimensions and see how many 

 can be cut out of a solid foot of timber. 



When the smaller sizes are wanted, and the thickness of veneer- 

 ing is sufficiently broad to cut them from, apiece of wood 4 inches 

 long by 1 inch broad, and half an inch thick, will give 10 pegs 

 at each end, or 20 in all out of 2 solid inches of wood, tlius fur- 

 nishing 17,000 and odd out of a solid foot of timber ; and these 

 slender pegs would then be quite as strong as the well-known 

 " Menographs," or wooden labels for plants, manufactured by 

 Messrs. Lingham of Birmingham ; and even when the pegs are 

 made of large dimensions, 10 inches long, half an inch broad, 

 and a quarter of an inch thick, the enormous number of two 



