1G6 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, 

 I 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, 

 rivetted to a plate of lead, on 

 which the name is stamped, 

 the shank and plate being 

 painted black, and the letters 

 ^. ^ , . , , tilled in with white lead. This 



Fig. 98. Cast-iron shank 



and disk of a tally for tally WaS USCd by Mr. GlcU- 



Trl rll*^'"^' ''"dinning in the Bicton Arbore- ^ig. 99. TaUy of cast-iron, with a 

 Jirmgroun . tum ; the Cast-irOU shank is label of lead, for naming trees 



shown in fig. 98, and the tally onjirmgrouna. 

 complete, with the label of lead rivetted 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 wood, and tied to them with twine, or 

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



