Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/407

 2 nd S. N 20., MAY 17. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

399

about six inches apart. It is a good plan to transplant holly plants from the nursery in good mould, the year before they are used in the fence, in order for them to acquire a large number of fibrous roots.

Holly will thrive in any kind of soil but peat. In the ground around my house are magnificent holly hedges, some twenty feet high ; but mostly eight feet, and impenetrable. Part of them are in sand, and part in strong boulder clay ; and they are about 150 years old. HENEY STEPHENS.

According to Cobbett, the berries should be gathered in autumn, kept in damp sand for a year, then sown in November, transplanted, after two summers into rich ground ; let stand there for two or three years, and then plant them for a hedge any time between September and April. But Waterton, a very practical man, says, plant holly hedges the last week in May, a full yard deep. F. C. H.

Holly, the only indigenous English evergreen, t and the most beautiful of all, will grow in any soil not absolutely wet. It should be planted with very fine earth round the roots, and well watered at the time of planting, which may be from early autumn to late spring. Many people prefer April or May, but I doubt the propriety of such late planting. If the leaves turn brown, at once cut it down to the ground. It is a shy trans- planter ; but, with care, I have never failed to make it grow on clay and on gravel. A good dry bottomed sandy loam suits it best. When planted for a hedge, it should not be less than eighteen inches or two feet apart, and in a single row.

ALGEENON HOLT WHITE.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Maxwell Lyte's New Printing Process. I wish to add a few words to what I have already addressed to you on the subject of printing by phosphate of silver, and thereby avoiding the use of hyposulphite for fixing. The process is very successfully applicable to the albumen. To make the albumenizing liquid, take

Albumen .... 500 parts.

Water 500

Phosphate of soda - 65

Acetate of soda - 32

Sugar of milk ... 50

All these by weight : perhaps 35 grammes of borax might be advantageously substituted for the acetate of soda, but of this I am not quite sure. The last three substances to be reduced to fine powder. Mix them all together, and whip them up into a fine froth as for the ordinary process. When settled, take the clear liquid, strain it, and pour it into a dish. Prepare the paper on this liquid just as usual. Sensitize with a bath of nitrate of twenty per

cent. Print as usual, only remember that in this pro- cess the picture loses nothing in the fixing, so do not print too dark. To fix the proof, I make roughly a solution of phosphoric acid by adding nitric acid to phosphate of soda. Take

Phosphate of soda ... 450 parts.

Water 2000

Nitric acid, sp. gr. 1'32, - - 250 All by weight.

Pound the phosphate of soda, and mix them all together ; when dissolved, they are fit for use. Nothing is requi- site but to place the proof for a short time in a little clean water, to take out the principal excess of the nitrate, and then to plunge it into the fixing liquid above mentioned. After being in this bath for five or six minutes, it is completely fixed, which may be known by the disappearance of all the yellow colour of the phos- phate in the light parts of the proof. It is then to be washed in clean water, and is fit for the colouring bath. The best colour is produced, as far as I have yet seen, by the use of Mr. Sutton's bath of sel (for, an excellent method of making which has been given by Mr. Hardwick in the Photographic Journal, No. 35. This salt, however, contains hypo in a small proportion; and it may be deemed an advantage to fix without hypo at all. A good bath, giving very fine tones, is composed as follows :

Chloride of gold - - - 1 part.

Common salt. - 1 fifth of a part.

Hydrochloric acid - 2 drops.

Water - - - 500 parts.

In this liquid the proof colours nearly, if not quite as well, as in the sel (for.

All that is requisite after the colouring bath is that the proof be washed and mounted. I must also add one or two words of caution. The reason of adding the acetate of soda is for the double purpose of neutralising the nitric acid set free by the decomposition of the nitrate of silver and phosphate of soda, and also to give an increase of sensibility, which it appears to do. The nitric acid, phosphate of soda, and water, are intended to produce an extempore solution of phosphoric acid, but a solution of that acid in the pure state may be, perhaps, substituted with advantage. When the liquid ceases to act it is be- cause it is saturated with silver. All that is then re- quired is to add most cautiously some hydrochloric acid, which will precipitate all the silver as pure chloride, and leave all the phosphoric free and ready to act over again. Great care must be taken that no excess of hydrochloric acid be added ; but if by mistake this should be the case, a cautious addition of some nitrate of silver solution will extract it all again. Nitric acid should be tried to see if it precipitates with dilute nitrate of silver solution. The phosphate of soda and the acetate must also be tried to see if the precipitate they form are completely soluble in nitric acid j if they leave any insoluble residue they are unfit for use. The phosphate and acetate of soda being efflorescent salts, should be kept in a corked bottle, other- wise they are liable to vary in composition. If the albu- men is to be kept, a drop or so of oil of cloves, or cam- phoretted spirit, added to the water before mixing will be found advantageous. Take care also that the water used, whether for fixing or for mixing the solutions, contains not the least trace of any substance which precipitates with nitrate of silver. This process gives pictures quite equal to any known process, and bids fair to produce prints of complete permanence. F. MAXWELL LYTE.

Bagneres de Bigorre, May 10, 1856.