Wire
Wire is extremely useful to florists and gardeners, who could not well do without it in making up bouquets and other personal decorations. Various thicknesses are used, according to the special purpose for which it is required: for instance, when flowers have to be provided with artificial stalks, short lengths of stiff Wire, known as "Stubbs," are used. These are generally procured in bundles, cut into 6in. or 8in. lengths, which are found most convenient. Binding Wire is very fine, and is largely employed in bouquet-making for securing the short lengths, already referred to, to the flowers, and for tying all the stalks together. It is wound on reels, and is strong, although quite pliable.
The springs sometimes used for fixing certain kinds of flowers in bouquets, so that they shall move about, may be readily made by binding tightly the piece of small Wire which it is intended should form the spring round a piece of a rather larger size, and then slipping off the coil.
Wire is largely employed for both movable and permanent trellises in glass houses, &c.; for this purpose, it is best galvanised, to prevent rusting. Copper binding Wire, in quantities according to requirements, should be kept in stock; it is often useful, and there are small and large gauges of this made, as well as of iron, the other principal metal used in Wire-making. Wire netting, and its various uses, such as preserving vegetable crops from destruction by rabbits, &c., are familiar to everyone The "mesh" refers to the size of the spaces; thus Wire netting of 1in. mesh has the spaces that distance across, and so on with other finer or coarser sorts.