METHODS or LABELLTNG TREES AND PLANTS. 161 



inclined at tlie top so as to hold the label, which is screwed on, in 

 such a position as to be easily read. The bases are arrow shaped, 

 so as to cling to the ground and make an impediment to their being 

 pulled up by visitors, who have an undesirable but innate craving 

 to pull up a label when reading it. Their small supports, used in 

 alpine borders and greenhouses, are long strips of zinc, to which 

 the label is attached by clinched copper tacks. They are very 

 neat and good. 



For out-door purposes I think unquestionably small wooden 

 labels attached to a metal support are better than long ones thrust 

 into the ground, as the latter are very subject to decay and are 

 expensive and unsightly. The common twelve inch garden labels 

 will cut up into three very good sized labels for this purpose. 



For wooden stakes to mark boundary lines, as the ends of rows, 

 or the position of unlabelled herbaceous plants, etc., small stakes 

 eighteen inches long which have been soaked in creosote oil I have 

 used very 8ucce8sfull3\ The treatment with creosote oil is 

 very cheap as a preservative, and renders wood practically rot- 

 proof, but unfortunately black so that it cannot be written on. 

 Such creosoted stakes have been in use for about ten years and do 

 not show the slightest signs of decay. The same treatment is 

 equally applicable to stakes for tying up plants, etc. 



The active horticulturist has frequent needs for a transient label, 

 as for h^'bridized flowers, seedlings to be separated out at the end 

 of the season, etc. For such purposes paper labels with a string 

 looped through a perforation in the margin, such as are used in 

 tagging goods, are very useful. They are easily attached to the 

 plant or flower, and last perfectly well throughout a season. 



Out of doors all labels, except long cumbersome wooden ones 

 which are thrust into the ground, should be suspended from some 

 form of support. With trees and some shrubs, it is commonly 

 advisable to attach them directly to the object to be labelled. But 

 with shrubs which are annually pruned, and all herbaceous plants 

 and bulbs, some special support for the label is needed. The form 

 of support for labels used at the Botanic Garden in Cambridge, 

 has been described above and now we will consider a form of 

 support which has been used in my own garden for many 3'ears 

 with entirely satisfactory results. A galvanized iron rod, three- 

 sixteenths of an inch thick and eighteen inches long, has the top 

 bent sharply over on itself so as to form an eyelet. The label is 

 11 



