166 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



are made at the potteries, and they are perhaps the handsomest of all. 

 They cost from 2d. to 3d. each, and readily receive black paint, China ink, 



or common ink, without any 



previous preparation : in the 



open air, however, they are 



very liable to be broken. For 



alpine or other herbaceous 



plants in pots in the open air, 



no tally is better than strips of 



sheet lead, about an eighth of 



an inch thick, with the name 



at length stamped in with steel 



type, an operation which the 



gardener may perform in incle- 

 ment weather. For large tal- 

 lies for trees, bricks, moulded 



with a sloping face and a sunk 



panel to contain a label of lead, 



zinc, or wood, may be used ; or 



tallies of heart -of-oak, previ- 

 ously steamed to draw out the 



sap, and afterwards boiled in 



linseed oil, painted black, with 



the name in white ; or a tally 



formed of a cast-iron shank, 



riveted to a plate of lead, on 



which the name is stamped, 



the shank and plate being 



painted black, and the letters 



filled in with white lead. This 



Fig. 1)8. Cast-iron shank . ,, , . ,, -,, 



and disk of a tally for ^y was USecl ty Mr - Glen- 



trees and shrubs dinning in the Bicton Arbore- Fig 9a Tally ofcast . iront U . M n 



tum ; the Cast-iron Shank is label of lead, for naming trees 



shown in fig. 98, and the tally m ^ rm e r <*- 



complete, with the label of lead riveted on, is shown in fig. 99. In 

 the Goldsworth Arboretum, instead of a plate of lead, a plate of por- 

 celain is used, on which the name is painted in black in oil. An 

 improvement on this kind of tally consists in having a disk or circular 

 plate cast on the shank, about a foot below the name-plate, as in figs. 

 98 and 99, which prevents the tally from sinking into the ground, and 

 always keeps it upright. Perhaps the most economical and durable tally 

 for plants in pots is a small strip of zinc, about three quarters of an inch 

 broad and six inches long, on which the name may be written with a 

 black-lead pencil, after rubbing' on a little white-lead paint, or with 

 Indian ink on dried white paint, or on the naked metal with prepared 

 ink, which is sold on purpose. The neatest, least obtrusive, and most 

 durable tally for this description of plants is undoubtedly strips of sheet 

 lead, with the names stamped in, and the letters distinguished by being 

 filled with white lead. Temporary labels to plants are written on strips 

 of parchment, or narrow slips of Ydj and tied to them with I wine, or 

 sometimes, when the plants are to be sent to a distance, with copper or 



