20d S.No 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 th®y 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. Hrnry 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, 
and the most beautiful of all, will grow in any 
soil not absolutely wet. It should be p d 
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. 
Axcernon Hott Wuire. 
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 
ae is very successfully applicable to the albumen. 
o make the albumenizing liquid, take — 
Albumen . - - . 500 parts. 
Water - - - - - 500 , 
Phosphate of soda - - - 6p" 
Acetate of soda - - - B2t iy 
Sugar of milk at gi - BO is 
All these by weight: perhaps 35 grammes of borax might 
be advantageously substituted for the acctate 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 - ~ - 4050 parts. 
Water - - - - - 2000 , 
Nitric acid, sp. gr. 1°32, - Be aD Uae vas 
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. Itis 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 d’or, 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 d’or. 
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; if they leave any insoluble residue they are 
unfit for use. The phosphate and acetate of soda being 
efHorescent 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. I, MaxweEu Lyte. 
Bagnéres de Bigorre, May 10, 1856. 
