INK FOR WRITING UPON ZINC. 67 
the first winter it will be advisable not to have them in larger than 
8-inch pots. Mignonette being an annual, if the seeds are not picked 
off after flowering, it is ten to one that the plant will die. I have had 
excellent Tree Mignonette three years old; very bushy, and full of 
flower all winter. Mignonette is often neglected at Midsummer, when 
our hands are full of other work, and yet this is the very time when 
Tree Mignonette wants most care, for the flowers not being wanted 
during summer, ought then to be removed, in order to have a fine 
winter display. To keep worms from entering and disturbing the 
roots, add a handful of soot at each shifting over the drainage. 
Mignonette delights in sandy loam, not too light, and being a gross 
feeder, a little diluted manure-water may be given once a-week with 
advantage. If this is contemplated, the mould need not be made so 
rich in the first instance. 
Winter Mignonette, as it is generally called, requires to be treated 
differently from the above. It is generally sown about the 20th of 
August, if later it will not acquire sufficient strength by winter for the 
London market. I generally grow from eight to ten plants in a 48- 
sized pot, which is six inches deep. For this sowing, it is safest to use 
a light sandy and rather poor mould, for if the latter is too rich and 
strong the plants damp off during winter. Out of nearly a thousand 
pots, I have often scarcely lost one by attending to this, by not allow- 
ing a drop of rain to fall on them during winter, by never watering 
them unless they were flagging, and by admitting at all times plenty of 
air. In the case of frost coming, however, they are closely covered 
up, sometimes for a week or fortnight together; and if you have not 
followed the above rules, you will suffer severely fram damp. Do not 
expose your plants for some days after the frost breaks up, and that 
only by degrees; above all things do not expose them to. the sun. My 
anxiety to give them light, after being so long covered up, has some- 
times led me for the moment to forget this, and I have suffered severely 
for my negligence. 
Should the winter prove mild, the plants will root into the ashes 
they are placed on; therefore they must be lifted up occasionally to 
break the roots. Slugs will annoy you if you do not look after them ; 
they fatten on Mignonette. To retard some of the pots, pinch the 
heads off the plants ; by this means they will not flower so strongly as 
those not pinched, and will yield a succession of bloom.— Gardeners’ 
Chronicle. 
INK FOR WRITING UPON ZINC. 
BY BURRIENSIS. 
Take of verdigris, in powder, and of crude sal ammoniac, of each 
one drachm ; lampblack, half a drachm; water, one fluid ounce and 
a quarter (that is, ten drachms); mix these ingredients well, and put 
the whole in a two-ounce phial, as there will be a little effervescence. 
_ This makes a most excellent and permanent ink for writing upon zine. 
I have tried it. Keep the zinc in the house for three days, after you 
write on it. You may then expose it to any weather. I have tried, 
but in vain, to rub out the writing, with water and a brush. 
Use a quill pen—not a steel one. 
