'28 ' 
AMERICAN AGrRICT LTURIST, 
[January, 
figures, add up what are left, and name the amount, and 
you will at once tell him what figure he erased. Sup¬ 
pose he erases the figure 7 — the remainder added togeth¬ 
er make 29. The difference between this figure and the 
multiple of 9 that is next higher, will give the numeral 
crossed out. The next multiple of 9 to 29 is 36—and the 
difference between 29 and 36 is 7, the figure removed. 
Shadow Gaines. 
A great deal of amusement can be made with 
shadows, and with a little forethought, one can pro¬ 
vide a capital entertainment for a holiday or other 
winter evening party. Almost every one is aware of 
the great variety of shadows that may be made by hold¬ 
ing the hands in different positions. You have only to 
recollect that it is the outline 
that makes the shadow, to see 
at once how many droll and 
striking things can be shown in 
this manner. You wish for 
example, to show a particular 
head-dress. It makes no differ¬ 
ence what the material, if it will 
east a shadow, or what the rest 
of it is, so that the outline is as 
desired. With a newspaper or 
two and a few pins, you can 
make any kind of bonnet or 
head-dress; strips of paper 
drawn across a knife will make 
curls, and a paper feather may 
he clipped in a few minutes that 
will make as fine a shadow as 
the most costly ostrich feather. 
So in disguising or costuming, 
paper, rugs, shawls, pillows, 
and the like, will allow comical 
or elegant figures to be made at 
pleasure, and if one wishes 
crowns, sceptres, keys, and 
other emblems, brown paper 
stiff enough to hold its shape, 
or thin paste-board, old ribbon 
and other boxes that may be had 
at the stores for the asking, will 
answer as well as the real thing. 
It will be very easy to make 
strangely shaped foreheads, 
comical noses and wonderful 
chins out of paper, and these 
may be held in place by coarse 
thread or small twine passed 
around the head, as this does 
not show. In showing shadow 
pictures, suspend a sheet across 
a door, all the better if a wide 
or folding door. The company 
are to be upon one side and in 
the dark. On the other side 
there should be but one very 
strong light, and it will be all 
the better if this has a reflector. 
If you have two lights, the 
shadows will be double and 
spoil all. This light should be 
fixed in some secure position 
at a hight about opposite the 
performers’ head6; the best 
distance from the sheet will be 
found by trial. The performers 
should stand close to the sheet 
to give a clear shadow', and 
each one should recollect to 
hold whatever they may have, and also to hold themselves 
in just the position to make the best shadow. Then a 
story or poem should be selected which allows of con¬ 
siderable movement, and the characters arranged before 
hand to illustrate the story while it is being read. Some 
of the wonderful and improbable Arabian Night’s tales 
would make capital subjects. Comic pieces like Holmes’ 
poem, “ The Tall Young Oysterman.” will afford much 
fun if illustrated by ridiculous shadows. Of course such 
things go off better if a rehearsal can be had before hand. 
The Paper now in Your Hands Came 
from Egypt! — Interesting Items. — Most 
persons highly value anything coming from a distant 
foreign land, as from Palestine, or Egpyt, etc. Well, 
with this copy of the American Agriculturist in your 
hands, you actually hold something that has come all 
the way from Egpyt in Northeastern Africa, and this 
is how it came about: You know that in Egypt, as in 
many other places, the people have but few books or 
newspapers, and don’t write many letters, and so they 
need very little printing or writing paper, and what 
they do use is mostly made elsewhere. Of course they 
want few rags to make paper of. But they are very saving. 
Every bit of rag is gathered, washed and sold, or ex¬ 
changed for confectionery, etc., and especially for cheap, 
coarse earthern jars and vases, mostly white, but roughly 
painted in bright colors, which are bought for ornaments 
in their poor rooms. The dealers fiud among these rags, 
hundreds of rag dolls which often have hair sewed on 
their heads. The rag merchants do a large business 
there. The Seymour Paper Co., that made this paper, 
hasagents in Egypt, who send over for the mills at Wind¬ 
sor Locks up in Connecticut, a good many ship-loads of 
these rags every year. They have “Shoonah’s” (ware¬ 
houses), in Alexandria and Cairo, with dusters, presses, 
steam-engines, etc., to prepare the rags for send¬ 
ing them, in full ship-loads, direct from Alexandria to 
New Haven. At the mills, the rags are bleached white, 
and ground or cut into fine pulp; this is floated in 
A SNOW MAN IN UNIFORM. 
water upon an endless sieve; as it moves along, it 
is shaken sidewise to intermingle the fine fibres of the 
pulp ; the water falls through ; the sheet of pulp is taken 
off by cylinders, some of them heated by steam inside; 
these press the fibres together firmly and dry them; 
the paper is coated with a sizing preparation, smoothed 
and dried and ironed (or “ calendered ”), by heavy, hot 
rollers, then cut up into sheets 39x52)4 inches, packed in 
bundles of 1000 sheets, and sent to N. Y. by R. R. and 
Steamboat, to be printed here. In order that the paper 
may be strong and durable, no clay, no straw or wood, 
which enter largely into the manufacture of most paper 
now made, is allowed in the printing paper for this Jour¬ 
nal ; but it is made of all pure linen and cotton rags, and 
we happen to know that these rags all came from Egypt. 
The original cotton probably grew in our country, and 
the linen in the North of Ireland; they were made into 
cloth in England, sent to Egypt and worn there to 
rags; then gathered as above, and now yon hold them in 
your hands. If you look at the paper with your micro¬ 
scope, you can see the fine fibres—cotton fibres from 
several of our Southern States, mingled and arm-locked 
with linen ones from the Emerald Isle. If they could 
speak, what a story each fibre could tell of its origin, 
its wandering, its treatment, and what it had sccd. 
Winter Ways—The Snow Han, 
The boy—or girl, either—who never helped make a 
snow man, has never had half the fun that winter brings. 
There is something about the first snow—not the mere 
flurry—but the right down good snow storm—the kind 
that old people call “old-fashioned”—that sets young¬ 
sters into a state of excitement. This is natural enough, 
for do they not find everything changed as they look outy 
in the morning? When they went to bed there were a 
few flakes falling, but all night long, while they have 
been sleeping, the snow has come down; fast and faster 
have come the soft white flakes, and silently have they 
fallen upon one another, and in the morning — what a 
change! You can see by the fences where the road 
ought to be; there is the well curb, and yonder the hay¬ 
stacks — but all the paths, the 
low stone walls, the horse block 
—all out of sight, and only one 
broad plain of white so far as 
can be seen. No wonder that 
this change excites young folks. 
All is different around them, 
and they feel like doing some¬ 
thing different themselves. 
But work first and play after¬ 
wards, and now the work 
can be half play, for the 
clearing of paths, sweeping off 
steps, at first real fun, gets to 
very much like work by the 
time it is finished. But the time 
for play comes, and the play 
must of course have something 
to do with the snow. Boys settle 
down upon one of two things 
—a snow fort or a snow man 
—and if girls have a voice in 
the matter, it is likely to be the 
man. for if there is a fort there 
must be a snow-ball fight, and 
that is rather rough for girls. 
But at the first the snow is too 
light for either, and the young¬ 
sters find they must wait for a 
day or two until the snow set¬ 
tles, before they can enjoy the 
fun. When the snow will pack, 
when it will gather by rolling, 
and a small ball will soon roll 
into a large one, then the snow 
man can be made. Generally 
one boy is the head sculptor, 
and the rest help. Very droll 
affairs these snow men often 
are, and we have thought if one 
could get a few dozens of them 
together, they would make 
about as funny an art gallery 
as would the same number of 
the images that stand for Indi¬ 
ans at the doors of the city to¬ 
bacco shops. First a big ball, 
as large as all hands can roll, is 
made for the foundation of the 
man. Next a smaller one, for 
the body, must be rolled up by 
the help of a board, and be 
placed upon the other. Then a 
still smaller one is lifted up 
for the head. These are the 
raw material, the marble, and 
when this is ready the work of 
the artist may begin. It is well 
to decide beforehand what kind of a man it shall be, else 
where several work at it there will be confusion. The 
young people in the picture had a military idea, and 
they are trying to work out the form of a General. 
The head seems large for the body—but perhaps they 
have heard that Napoleon or other great General had a 
“longhead.” If you wish the man to last—and if well 
built and favorable weather follows, one will stand a 
surprisingly long time—you will join on the head by 
means of a stake run down through the body, and if 
the arms are to do anything but hang down by the sides, 
some sticks must be thrust into the body to build the 
snow around. Of course you wiH think of bits of coal 
for the eyes, and if something can be found to serve for 
buttons, all the better for the coat. In making the 
snow man, start with a big mass of snow, and then care¬ 
fully cut and scrape away all that hides the man you' 
would make. You have the advantage over the worker 
in marble. If you cut away too much, you can plaster 
on some more snow and try again, but the marble once 
chipped away can not be replaced. One word of caution 
about your snow man — Do not make him near the road. 
Horses are readily frightened at unusual objects, and 
even a very steady, gentle horse may take fright at 
such a figure, and your sport be the cause of a sad result. 
