15 a 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
NATHANIEL ORR 
A Furt er Talk with the Boys and Girls 
about Engraving. 
On page 5!) (Feh.) we gave our young readers some ac¬ 
count of “ how pictures are made,” which seems to have 
much interested them, and the older people too, and a 
great many of them are in a hurry to have us fulfil our 
promise to ask Mr. Orrtotalk more on the subject. One 
who calls himself “ an old boy, only 74 years of 
age,” w rites that “ he reads the Boys and Girls columns 
the first thing in the Agriculturist, and enjoysthem much, 
because he there finds the things that would also have 
interested him in his other boyhood.” He further says: 
“ I know the Editor has been a farmer’s boy, for he gives 
the hoys and girls just such information as they wish but 
cannot find ebewhere.” But this by the way—Well, we 
did ask Mr. Orr, but he is a modest man, and preferred 
to let us do the writing, though he would willingly do 
Earthing to interest and instruct the young folks. (Would 
you notthinkso when you look at his countenance, which 
we take the liberty to insert on this page without ask¬ 
ing his consent, as we obtamed this good picture of him 
from an Art As-ociation in this city!) Mr. Orr and his 
partner, Mr. Wood, kindly went with us through their 
rooms, allowing us to quiz the workmen, and pick up 
engravings used to illustrate this article—some of 
them they made specially for this purpose. 
Engraving is done on w ood, on stone, on copper, and on 
steel: On copper and steel, the lines are simply cut into 
the surface, when the plate is smeared over with ink, and 
this is all w iped off except w hat remains in the places cut 
the lines upon a peculiar kind of stone. 
The stone is then wet and an ink roller 
passed over. As the stone is all wet except 
where the oily lines are upon it, only those 
places take the ink, and give it off to pa¬ 
per when pressed upon it. To print in 
Lithograph, or on copper or steel, is a slow 
process, and since electrotype copper dupli¬ 
cates have been inven'ed, most of the work 
formerly done on copper, is now first done 
on w ood and transferred to copper. Messrs. 
N. Orr A Co. are now executing large 
amounts of work for Government, which 
was, until recently, done on copper plate, 
no better, and at many times the expense. 
Common coarse engravings are made on 
maple or mahogany ; and large show¬ 
bills when engraved are ev%n cut on pine, 
but all the finer wood engravings are upon 
a very hard box-wood brought from Tur¬ 
key. Box-wood trees are usually small, 
but several pieces are glued together when 
a large block is wanted. The hox-wood 
logs are sawed across into pieces just the 
length of printers’ type. One side is then 
made very smooth and whitened bv rub¬ 
bing a moistened enamelled card upon it. 
An artist then draws upon 
it just the lines, marks, 
Ac., that are to be printed. Fig. 2. 
This is done with pencils or India Ink. 
-. The drawing or designing is a dis inct art 
from engraving. We found half-a-dozen 
or more of tnese designers at work and learned that some 
excel on one kind of drawing, and others in other kinds— 
some succeeding best at landscape drawing, some at ma¬ 
chinery, Ac 
Fig. 3. 
In the simplest kinds of engraving, the workmen merely 
cut away the wood, leaving the black lines remaining. 
We split an engraved block and looking upon the side of 
it the top appeared like figure 3. You can see the various 
points projecting upward to receive ink for printing. In 
fig. 2, we give a side and end view of the point of one 
the tools used for cutting away the block. As we have 
Fig. I- 
out. The paper is then laid on and subjected to powerful 
pressure, w hich causes it to pick out the ink remaining in 
the lines. 
Lithographing is different from engraving. In this process, 
no cutting is done, but an oily ink is used for putting on 
Fig. 4— shepherd’s doo 
before explained, many lines are so small that the en¬ 
graver has a magnifying glass placed on a frame between 
his eye and the block he is cutting. 
Many of the drawings, are simply uniform co 
lors, as clouds, shading, Ac., and here the engraver must 
exercise his skill to leava such points on the wood as wil I 
give the expression. Thus, you will see in figs. 1,4,5, 
and 6, very different kinds of lines to express the hair on 
the Dog and Stag, and the two kinds of feathers on the 
Wood Lark and Teal. To give these various expres¬ 
sions or tints correctly, requires not only skill and judge¬ 
ment, but long experience. To be a first class engraver 
a man requires someliiirg more than mechanical skill- 
lie must have a talent for it, and this is the reason why 
there are so few first elites engravers, as there are few- 
real sculptors, painters Ac. 
You will see, then, that this Artis one to which ma 
chinery can never be applied in most of its details. Re¬ 
gularity would spoil almost any fine engraving. There 
are, however, certain kinds of ” tinting” which a ma¬ 
chine can do. Mr Orr has an ingenious machine with 
which he cut figs. 7 and 8 before our eyes, and in very 
little tune. He also cut for us on this machine, the tinting 
in fig. 9. This is done with a kind of little plow- w hich 
is passed over the block and given a vibrating motion as 
it moves along. The same machine can be changed to 
cut many different tints. The white letters of ihe name 
are cut out with the too's show n in fig. 2 This machine 
Fig 5— WOOD LARK. 
is much used for tinting bank checks, drafts Ac. Just 
now it is applied to preparing blocks to print the whole 
outside of letter envelopes. A man’s business card can 
be printed on tinted ground upon an envolop, so 
lightly, that the superscription or direction of the letter 
can be w ritten right over the printing These envelopes 
printed in buff, and other colored inks, are very beautiful 
Fig. C— THE TEAL. 
There are many things connected with the art of engrav¬ 
ing which w e have not room to tell you of—but we know it 
will interest you to learn as much as possible of an art 
which contributes so much to your pleasure by exhibiting 
to the eye the appearance of plants, implements, and a 
thousand other things you have not seen and may never 
Fig. 7 
see. One thing more we must tell you of, however. You 
w ill see that much depends upon the artist who make the 
first draft or picture of a thing. Until reo-ntly, this has 
in all cases been put upon the engraver’s block with pen¬ 
cil and brush. But now they are beginning to make 
Fig. 8. 
daguerreotypes, or rather photographs of objects directly 
upon the surface of the wood itself. Thus, the portrait 
above, w as first pictured right upon the prepared surface 
of a boxwood block, and the cutting done immediately by 
an engraver. You will readily see that the outlines must 
Fig. 9. 
thus be more perfectly obtained, than if drawn by the 
eye with a pencil. Some of our pictures of trees, plants, 
flowers, and implements are thus obtained. The only 
difficulty in this process now is, that the surface of the 
w ood must first to colored dark before applying the silver 
