146 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 23, 



Labels. 



A THOROUGHLY satisfactory label for a plant has 

 not been invented ; and yet a good label is one of 

 the most important elements of a good garden. It should 

 be indestructible, cheap and unobtrusive, and it should be 

 made of a material upon which ordinary writing will be 

 durable and legible. The labor involved in naming and 

 in preserving the names of a large collection of plants is so 

 great that experiments are constantly made with different 

 materials, in the hope that something may be found that 

 may answer all the requirements of a good label, at once 

 cheap and durable. The results of many such experiments 

 have been presented in a most interesting and in- 

 structive paper, lately read before the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society by Mr. Robert T. Jackson, of Boston. 



Metal labels are more durable than wooden ones ; and 

 zinc, Mr. Jackson finds, is the metal most commonly used, 

 as it is cheap and reasonably durable. Briglit, fresh zinc, 

 first cleaned for the purpose with very weak muriatic acid, 

 may be written on with an aqueous solution of chloride of 

 platinum or chloride of copper. These solutions can now 

 be purchased from dealers in seeds and garden supplies ; 

 and a quill pen is the best thing to use for writing with 

 them. Labels thus prepared need no further attention. 

 Zinc slightly roughened by oxidation, which is easily pro- 

 duced by leaving it for a few weeks in a damp place, may 

 also be written on with a soft lead pencil. The writing 

 soon becomes indelibly fixed on the zinc, and is as perma- 

 nent as if the chemical ink had been used. Labels pre- 

 pared in this way are known to hav^ been legible ten years 

 after they were written, and are, Mr. Jackson con- 

 siders, about the most satisfactory to use out-of-doors. 



Iron, or tinned iron, painted a neutral tint and lettered, 

 is also used sometimes for labeling large trees, but copper, 

 chemically one of the most stable metals, would no doubt 

 make a better label, the names being written on it with a 

 white or light-colored paint. On smaller copper labels, 

 names, as Mr. Jackson suggests, "could be very easily 

 and rapidly marked by an etching process as follows : 

 Heat a sheet of copper, rub over with etcher's wax, and 

 when cool, write the names with a steel point, laying bare 

 the copper on the lines of the writing, expose to nitric acid 

 and water — equal parts — for a few minutes, clean off the 

 wax with turpentine, and cut up the copper into suitable- 

 sized labels." Pure tin — not the tinned iron usually 

 known as tin — is recommended for labels to be used in a 

 warm green-house temperature, where other metals are 

 subject to extreme corrosion. Names or numbers can be 

 easily stamped with common steel dies into any of these 

 metals, and stamped labels are more permanent than 

 written ones. And even when it is desirable to write the 

 name on a metal label, a supplementary number corre- 

 sponding to a number in a written record of the collection 

 adds immensely to its value. A narrow strip of lead 

 stamped with a name or with a number and wound about 

 the stem of a plant is used in many European establish- 

 ments, and makes a permanent label, although it has to be 

 taken off the plant to be read. Different styles of pottery 

 labels have been tried, but they break easily, and the care- 

 less blow of a spade will finish the best of them. White 

 porcelain labels, with the letters burned in, and set in iron 

 frames, are neat and indestructible, and perhaps the best 

 which have yet been devised. They are far too expensive, 

 however, for general use. Mr. Jackson calls attention to a 

 white composition label, in use in the Botanic Garden at 

 Geneva, which can be written on with a pencil or with in- 

 delible ink, but this would probably prove almost as brit- 

 tle and easily broken as pottery. 



Wood is more generally used, however, in this country, 

 for labels, and probably aUvays will be. Well-selected 

 white pine labels, soaked in linseed oil, will last for a 

 number of years, and white pine is probably the cheapest 

 wood of its durability which can be obtained for this 

 purpose. California redwood is very durable, and not 



now very expensive. It holds paint well, and makes an 

 admirable label, and so do the wood of the Southern 

 Cypress and the Catalpa. The last, however, is not com- 

 monly found in the market. Locust makes a very strong 

 and durable label, but it is expensive and its surface is 

 coarse for lettering. Laljels made of pine, or of other not 

 very durable woods, when used in the ground should have 

 the lower portion carefully coated vi'ith tar. A pine stake 

 so prepared, and then painted with two coats of good paint 

 before being lettered, will last for eight or ten years. It is 

 a rule, which, so far as possible, should never be deviated 

 from, that the label should be securely attached to the 

 plant itself. It is easy to do this in the case of trees' and 

 shrubs, but with annual, bulbous and herbaceous perennial 

 plants the label must be placed in the ground near the 

 plant. There is always danger that such labels may be 

 lost or misplaced. The record, therefore, in regard to such 

 plants, is much more difficult to preserve than in the case 

 of trees and shrubs. A metal label with the name and a 

 number plainly stamped into it, and securely attached to 

 a branch with a piece of good strong copper wire is the 

 best record which has been devised, and such a label 

 should be placed on trees and shrulis whenever it is im- 

 portant or desirable to keep a record of their history, even 

 when they are labeled in a more conspicuous manner for 

 the benefit of the public. It must be borne in mind, how- 

 ever, that labels attached to branches or the stems of small 

 trees should be examined every year, and the wire loos- 

 ened whenever the growth of the plant causes it to bind 

 the bark. Many plants are ruined from neglect to attend 

 to this precaution. This is the great danger, and the only 

 drawback to labels fastened in this manner. 



The best label for a large tree, when it is desirable to in- 

 struct the public by this means, is a piece of cold rolled 

 copper, twelve inches long by eight wide. The upper 

 edge should be bent nearly at right angles with the face of 

 the label, to make a narrow hood in order to protect the 

 letters from rain and moisture running down the trunk. 

 The Latin and English names of the tree, and its native 

 country, should be printed in some light neutral tint, and 

 the label should be tacked on the trunk with stout copper 

 tacks, at the height of the human eye. 



Trees with trunks too small to carry a label of this de- 

 scription, shrubs, and perennial and annual plants, can be 

 labeled with stout stakes prepared in the manner already 

 explained, and driven into the ground deep enough to re- 

 sist the heaving influence of the frost. A neater label for 

 such plants, although more expensive, can be made by 

 suspending a small oblong metal or wooden label with 

 copper wire to a slender galvanized iron rod, bent at one 

 end into an eye. The rods should be not less than three- 

 sixteenths of an inch thick, and from eighteen to twenty- 

 four inches long, in order to enable them to have a firm 

 hold on the ground, and to carry the label well up in front 

 of the plant. Such labels, although more expensive, have this 

 great advantage over stake-labels that the writing upon them 

 can be made horizontal to the eye, and therefore much more 

 easily read. They are, moreover, more durable — indeed 

 such labels if carefully made are practically indestructible, 

 and they are less objectionably conspicuous. They should 

 supplement, however, in the case of small trees and shrubs, 

 the small metal label attached to a branch. 



The Senate of New York acted wisely and in accordance 

 with the most enlightened sentiment of the State when it 

 defeated the bill authorizing the Forest Commission to lease 

 the public lands under their charge to private individuals. 

 Not to repeat the objections to this measure which have 

 alread)^ been presented in these columns, it may be said 

 that the building of many houses and other permanent 

 structures which was invited and encouraged by this bill 

 would go far to rob the North Woods of that wildness which 

 is one of their principal attractions. A fringe of painted 

 villas and fences about an Adirondack lake would certainly 

 add nothing to its charm. 



