a ee 
; 
152 RECREATION. 
one trying them to open the camera, and 
lay off with a lead pencil, on the ground 
glass, the exact size of each kit opening. 
Then in focusing keep well inside your 
lines for each plate. If you try to 
carry the size of plate in your mind while 
focusing you are apt to make objects much 
smaller than they need be; also to scalp or 
curtail your subject. These lines in no way 
interfere with focusing for a full size plate. 
In fact I find them a great convenience 
in leveling and focusing, and I know work- 
ers who lay off the entire ground glass in 
squares to assist in this. 
14. Last winter the water works in our 
house froze and burst, and it was 2 weeks 
before I could get them repaired. I had 
some pictures contracted and was com- 
pelled to finish them. 
I hired a hand: and we ‘carried 34 
buckets of water across the lot, and then 
I began to slop. I slopped all day and 
took a cold that threatens to land me in 
a premature grave. I made the measliest 
lot of pictures I ever turned out. I don’t 
think I surpassed them in my salad days. 
Hereafter when pictures are submitted to 
me for criticism I shall ask, “faucet wash 
buckets of water across the lot, and then 
or bucket wash?” 
If they say “faucet” I shall sail in and 
criticise. If they say “bucket,” I shall say 
“well done!” regardless. 
Any one who gets anything out that you 
can recognize when washing plates and 
prints by hand is a genius. 
If I didn’t have water works I should 
wear my last spring’s bonnet one year 
more, call in the tinner, have him make 
me a Is or 20 gallon tin can and mount 
it on brackets over the kitchen sink, with 
a small piece of hose to drip the water 
on my plate and prints in their trays in the 
sink. If I had not a sink I would forego 
a new frock, and have him make a large tin 
tray to set my washing pans in, and use a 
second piece of hose from it to a bucket 
underneath to catch the drippings. 
It may seem at first too great a hard- 
ship to give up frocks and bonnets, and 
theatre parties; but it isn’t half so bad 
as to make so much expense with your 
camera, that you set the family complain- 
ing, and have to give up work you are 
anxious to do on account of the expense. 
I speak from experience, and it has not 
been funny; but that is over. 
A pair of shearers with blades so long 
you can swipe clear down the side of a 
5 x 7, at one fell swoop. 
Forty feet of camera hose, with a bulb, 
so you can set your camera focussed on a 
bird’s nest and retire to the bushes, leav- 
ing a trial of rubber behind. When the 
bird comes home with a worm in its bill, 
think of the picture you'll get. 
x 
A big strong jack knife to cut limbs to 
cover the camera with. 
Here comes the tug-of-war for me. A 
pair of Brownie overalls, so there will be 
no skirts to hold getting in and out boats, 
or to snag on logs and trip me up. As 
for climbing snake fences how on earth 
is one to do it? A camera, perhaps 2 in 
one hand, a tripod, a focussing cloth, and 
a roll of hose in the other. 
No one sees you in the woods and beside 
when one does you are writing articles and 
taking pictures on contract, at a salary, 
so you may surely be allowed as much 
liberty as a bicycle girl. 
If it were only a ball dress now, with 
shoulder straps for sleeves, and a patch 
of waist fore and aft, as big as your 2 
hands that would be all clear sailing. 
Lastly, a pair of wading boots. Just 
so surely as I land on one side the river 
and let the boat go back, just so surely 
do I see a bird with a worm in its bill 
enter a bush on the other side; or a snake 
or a rabbit, or a quail, where I feel sure I 
could get them were I only there. The 
Wabash is navigable in top boots, except in 
rare places, after the middle of May; and 
half the time you are compelled to get 
in the water to get the view you want on 
the bank. The deacon is long suffering, 
and kind; I want this list before time to 
start to Michigan and I don’t know what 
he will say but you should see me pour 
out the oil of pursuasion, in double barrel- 
ed doses. 
I have managed to catch my_ skirts and 
fall down repeatedly. 
I have stumbled, and complained that I 
fear I'll break my bones and cripple mys 
self. I have estimated that I have lost $500 
worth of rare pictures, that I failed to get 
because I was not properly dressed to 
secure them. I firmly believe that in 6 
weeks more I shall have him to the place 
where he will advise me to dress so I can 
go about my business untrammeled. 

POINTS FOR AMATEURS. 
An acid fixing bath, which has many ad- 
vantages over plain hypo solution, may be 
made as follows: Dissolve 8 ounces of hypo 
in 24 ounces of water; 1 ounce of sulphite 
of soda in 3 ounces of water; ™% ounce of 
chrome alum in 4 ounces of water, and add 
I ounce of sulphuric acid to 1 ounce of 
water. For mixing add the sulphuric acid 
solution to the sulphite of soda solution, 
then add this mixture to the hypo solution, 
and lastly add the chrome alum. The use 
of an acid fixing bath hardens the film, does 
away with the necessity for an alum bath, 
and for washing the plate between develop- 


