The French have several little ways of verification, which we have not yet put in practice. If you purchase a looking-glass in Paris, the vender hands you a candle, and asks you to write your autograph on the face; notwithstanding this verification, we have never been quite sure that a purchase in that line was not somehow (possibly by a transfer of the candle-grease to another glass) unverified. But let that pass. The adjoining little cut represents an instrument for the verification of your tree purchases; where suspicion exists, it will be a very handy article to bring out of a waistcoat pocket The little pincer allows you to place a marked lead above a knot, by a string or cord, by which you verify your tree when it gets home. It is a common pincer, having at its extremities two points, upon which numbers or letters at a and b are engraved; pinched slightly into the knot or bark, your string sustains a lead with a similar indentation, enabling you to be perfectly satisfied that you have obtained what you purchased.

It is the invention of M. Arnheiter, and engraved for a late number of the Revue Horticole.