THE IRIS GARDEN 9 



good, but are perhaps a little expensive. A good label 

 is made of wood with wire legs, but for a cheap and 

 durable label, not too obtrusive, I recommend zinc, 

 written upon with a suitable ink certainly not the green 

 ink usually sold in shops. A label that costs little 

 and which will preserve the writing easily legible for 

 twenty-five and perhaps thirty years is not to be despised. 

 Labels of sheet zinc will do this if written upon with a 

 solution of bi-chloride of platinum, 1 6 grains to the 

 ounce of distilled water. A quill pen should be used 

 to write with. Some years ago I experimented largely 

 with labels, and here let me give a hint. Use a best 

 brand of zinc Vieille Montagne, perhaps and insist 

 upon its being delivered in brown paper so as to avoid 

 all the tarnish that is possible. In the ink put a few 

 drops of hydrochloric acid and any ordinary film of 

 tarnish or dirt will be bitten through as the writing goes 

 on. The colour of the ink is orange, but when it 

 touches the zinc a deep dead black should instantly 

 appear. A coat of good carriage varnish may be laid on 

 by the finger, and when this is dry the label is ready for 

 use. Complaints are sometimes made of a kind of 

 encrustation which obscures the name, but this in the 

 Cambridge Botanic Gardens, where many thousands of 

 these labels are in use, is practically never noticeable. 

 The one drawback is, that if the coat of varnish dis- 

 appears and is not renewed, it may be necessary to wet 

 the label in order to read the name. It is not always so, 

 but some drawback must be expected in a label so cheap 

 as this is. I have assumed that the labels will be made 

 at home ; indeed they ought to be, for with proper 

 shears the zinc thickness No. 1 1 it should be can be 

 cut as easily as paper, and there need be no waste. In 

 order to strengthen the stem of these labels for pushing 

 into the ground, I make a groove or corrugation by 

 means of an iron block with a channel, the label being 



