Zinc Labels for Trees. 27 



method practised by me, for several years, to induce me to 

 think that you alluded to a conversation I had with you on 

 the subject a short time since. I have now written out my 

 method, and accompanied it with some explanations. If you 

 think the genuine reading of any importance, you are at 

 liberty to give it a corner in your next number. A great ob- 

 jection to the use of unpainted zmc, marked with a lead pen- 

 cil, one of the modes adopted by your correspondent, is the 

 indistinctness of the writing, the color of the zinc and of the 

 pencil mark being nearly the same. 



Loudon, in his great work on Gardening, has enumerated 

 many kinds of tallies used in England, no one of which com- 

 bines, to so great a degree, those essential advantages, dura- 

 bility, convenience and economy, as the painted zinc. Even 

 for mercantile purposes, I think this will prove the most con- 

 venient mode to nurserymen, and be highly useful to pur- 

 chasers, most of whom, with the loss of the common wooden 

 labels, soon lose the names of their fruit trees, about which 

 they remain indifferent, till at length the different varieties 

 begin to bear. Then curiosity is excited to identify the kinds. 

 The greatest confusion follows. Serious mistakes are made 

 and perpetuated. A large and dear experience is necessary, 

 before the amateur can separate the wheat from the chaff, 

 distinguish the genuine from the spurious, and at last arrive 

 at even a tolerable degree of certainty in the nomenclature of 

 fruits. 



I send you a few tallies, as specimens of the various 

 methods I have used, at different times, while seeking for 

 something better than the " good old way." 



Cambridge, Nov. 21, 1846. 



Method of Making the Labels.* — Have ready a sheet of 

 zinc, which must be perfectly clean. Take the purest white 

 lead, ground in oil ; thin it with spirits of turpentine, in 

 place of oil ; add mastic varnish {copal turns the paint 

 yellow,) sufficient to make the composition adhere well 

 to the zinc and give it hardness, but not in excess, which 



* Any tinman will furnish strips of clean zinc, cut them into pieces of two square 

 inches, after being painted, and punch them, at the rate of 23 cents per hundred. 

 This would be cheaper than to use whole sheets. 



