CHAP. IT. TALLIES. 



SHADES. 



Shades or screens of some description or other are absolutely 

 necessary for protecting young plants from the power of the 

 sun, on being first put out in the open ground. For want of 

 some such protection, numberless plants that are put out, par- 

 ticularly in the month of February, of a certainty become burnt 

 up and perish. Nothing can be better perhaps for small plants 

 than inverted flower-pots, with a portion of one side cut or 

 broken off. These should be put over the plant during the day, 

 with the open part of course towards the north, and removed at 

 sunset. 



The stem of a large Plantain slit in two, and cut into portions, 

 affords a supply of half-pipes, which serve admirably for laying 

 over young seedlings to screen them when first planted out. 



For larger plants, such as young Mango-grafts, Lichees, &c., 

 some coarse kind of matting or chittaee may be employed bent 

 round and fastened with stakes. 



TALLIES. 



When it is desired to distinguish potted plants by merely 

 numbering them, it will be found far the most convenient to 

 use the tally of the Horticultural Society of London, of which a 

 representation is here given. 



1 23 4 5 67 89 



Fig. 7. 



This represents a pointed flattened piece of bamboo, upon 

 which the figures cut are always read upward from the pointed 

 end, inserted in the ground. The uppermost of the numerals, 

 when any number is to be cut on the stick, will be in the place 

 of units, the next lower in the place of tens, the next in the 

 place of hundreds, and so on, as in the ordinary Arabic mode 

 of enumeration. Thus iv and vn marked on the bamboo will 

 denote respectively 15 and 511. 



