1877 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
65 
ing ” from a strip of white paper, the most grace¬ 
ful flower and leaf forms. The lady presented us 
with a specimen of her work, mounted upon a 
square of black paper, upon the hack of which was 
her card, “Harriet F. Bailey, of Walworth, Wis., 
3601 Ludlow St., W. Phila. Pa.” Miss Bailey’s 
work shows an evident desire to follow nature, and 
being made from memory only, without drawing or 
any pattern to copy, it is placed far above anything 
like paper flowers, and similar productions. There 
is great ease of outline, and a grace in grouping 
and execution, that makes them very pleasing. To 
show what her cuttings are like, we give an en¬ 
graving of a small cluster of the actual size. It 
will be seen that it is quite unlike those paper cut¬ 
tings made by doubling the paper, once or several 
times ; in those there is a reproduction of forms, 
and one side is the counterpart of the other. As 
the sculptor, who said that the statue was already 
in the block, and his business was merely to chisel 
away the superfluous marble, so Miss B. sees flower 
and leaf forms on the blank sheet, and she, only 
with fine scissors, liberates them from their im¬ 
prisonment in the paper. We inquired of the lady 
how she came to take up this art, and learned that 
when a child, she and her sister occupied them¬ 
selves in cutting, without any teaching; if they 
wished to describe anything to one another, or to 
their mother, they would take paper and scissors, 
and cut out the form of fruit, flower, or whatever 
object they wished to indicate, the scissors serving 
in their hands the place of pen or pencil. We 
found the artist with more orders on hand than she 
could fill, from those who wished to take away 
some graceful little remembrancer of the Women’s 
Department of the Exhibition. We learn that Miss 
Bailey will have a desk at the permanent exhibition, 
which is soon to open in the Main Building. Chil¬ 
dren are very fond of cutting paper, and Froebel 
knowing this introduced paper-cutting among his 
Kindergarten occupations ; though his is a mechan¬ 
ical kind of cutting, with folded paper. If chil¬ 
dren wish to cut paper, they should be encouraged 
to copy forms, and with an object in view, thus 
educating the hand and the eye, but it is only where 
there is a strong love for the objects represented, 
and an unusual natural talent to reproduce with 
the hand what is seen by the eye, that any can hope 
to attain to the skill shown in the work here noticed. 
Plant-shelves in Windows. 
BY L. D. SNOOK, YATES CO., N. Y. 
Those who keep window-plants, will find that the 
following plan for attaching shelves to the win¬ 
dows will be useful in many eases, though of 
course its applicability will depend much upon the 
manner in which the house is built! The movable 
strip, or “ stop,!’ which holds the sash in place, is 
taken out, and in its place is put one an inch thick, 
and four or five inches wide, or as wide as the win¬ 
dow will allow, as shown in fig. 1 by _B, B. There 
are of course two of these, and in each is a series 
of grooves or “gains,” as the carpenters say, in¬ 
tended to admit the ends of the shelves. To make 
this plain, an enlarged portion is shown in figure 2. 
By rounding the corners of the shelves, those for 
the larger pots may be six or seven inches wide, 
while the side strip which supports them is only 
Fig. 2.— shelf. Fig. 3.— BRACKET. 
four inches wide. Figure 1 shows a window thus 
furnished. When the shelves are no longer re¬ 
quired, the side-pieces may be taken out and the 
“ stops ” returned, and no part of the window- 
eots & (miLS 51 ©©Mims, 
It is made of four rules, which my be of brass or of some 
hard wood. Two of these, a and b. are jointed at c ; the 
other two, d and e, are jointed together over h. At i is a 
fixed point, screwed to the table, to which the rule, a, is 
so fastened that it can move easily. At g is a point for a 
tracer; at h is a pencil. When the point, g, is moved, 
the point or pencil at h follows its movements exactly. 
The joints, c and h, should work freely, but be true; 
these are not to be altered. The upper pair of rules, d. e, 
are fastened to the other pair, a, b, at any desired point ; 
according to their position, the drawing traced by the 
point g, will be repeated by h , either larger or smaller. 
The drawing to be copied, is fastened by pins at g, and a 
piece of paper placed under the pencil at h ; by carefully 
following the lines of the drawing with g , it will be re¬ 
peated at h, the same size, or smaller, according to the 
point where the upper pair of rules are attached to the 
lower. To have the Pantograph work nicely, it must be 
well made, all the joints move easily, yet closely ; it re¬ 
quires a little care to get the “ hang V of it. At c there 
should be a leg or prop, to hold up the corner, and this 
should be smooth on the end to move on the board easily. 
The Pantograph—the name from the Greek for all and ta 
•write —will allow one to copy maps, plans, and such 
things very accurately, and to reduce them. I am 
afraid that not many boys are sufficiently skilled in the 
use of tools to make one themselves—but they can try. 
this picture a view of the 
to attract the animals there. It 
there by “ enchantment.” It may be that he calls it 
and it may be that you can find out what it is. 
A. Drawing’ Macliine. 
Master A. J. H., writes to The Doctor that he saw at 
the Centennial Exhibition a machine used to copy draw¬ 
ings, called a “ Smithograph,” he sends a circular de¬ 
scribing it, and wishes to know if he has a right to make 
one. The circular speaks of the “ great, new, and beau¬ 
tiful art of Smithography,” and much besides. Now I do 
not know anything about this “ Smithograph,” but I can 
tell my young friend something 
which, whatever else it may be, is not “ new.” I saw it 
when I was a youngster, and of course it can not be so 
very recent. In fact, it is nearly 300 years since the thing 
was invented, and the novelty has worn off by this time. 
T find an engraving of it in that new and excellent book, 
Knight’s “ Mechanical Dictionary,” which I give here. 
frame will have been marred, or injured in any way. 
Where it is not practicable to remove the “ stops ” 
and substitute side-pieces, then the shelves 
supported on brackets, of 
the form shown in figure 3. 
Any blacksmith can make 
these of a piece of nail-rod; 
they should be furnished 
with holes for screws, by 
which they can be attached 
to the window-frames, and 
there should also be a hole 
at P, through which to pass 
a screw from below into the 
bottom of the shelf, to hold 
it firm.—[We may add that 
Mr. S.’s suggestion of brack¬ 
ets will answer to support 
a window-box, which is by 
many window gardeners pre¬ 
ferred to pots. Any rough 
box, of a length to suit the 
window, and about six inches 
high and wide, will answer. 
Have the tinman make a 
zinc lining to fit, and high 
enough to turn over the edge of the box, so that no 
earth may get between the box and the lining. The 
outside of the box may be covered to suit the fan¬ 
cy ; strips of bark, or split twigs, will give a pleas¬ 
ing rustic effect, or it may be covered with a bit of 
floor oil-cloth with a molding on the edges. We 
once covered a box with oil-cloth of a mechanical 
pattern, and it had every appearance of an expen¬ 
sive tile-covered box. Kecolleet that a box of this 
kind is very heavy when filled, and the brackets and 
their fastenings must be correspondingly strong.] 
No. 453.—Puzzle 
“Enchanted Bluff.” 
may be that they only 
enchanted for 
g. 1.—COVER CLOSED. 
Cover to a Pork Barrel. —In families where 
pork is largely used, to 
cook or in cooking, the 
barrel, usually kept in 
the cellar, is frequently 
visited, the required 
slices of pork cut off, 
and the piece returned 
to the brine. It is a 
very simple matter, hut 
very often there is no 
place at hand, clean enough, or suitable, whereon 
to place the piece of pork, while cutting. To 
supply this, our correspondent, Mr. L. D. Snook, 
suggests a cover to the barrel which will make 
the work cleanly and 
easy. Figure 1 shows 
the barrel when clos¬ 
ed by its cover. The 
board, A, covers a 
part of the top of the 
barrel, being fastened 
by screws, and ex¬ 
tends over to form a 
shelf, supported by 
the brace M The re¬ 
mainder of the cover, 
B, is hinged to this 
stationary part. When 
the cover is opened, as in fig. 2, it rests upon the 
shelf, and affords a firm, clean, and convenient sur¬ 
face on which to do the cutting, and there is no 
trouble in looking about for a suitable place. These 
small things cost only a little time, and not much 
of that, but help make house work go on smoothly. 
Fig. 2.— COVER OPEN. 
Painting Floors.— “K. S. M.,” Dodge Co., 
Nev., writes : “ There is but one paint suitable for 
the purpose —French Ochre. First, if the boards 
have shrunk, clean out the joints well, and with a 
small brush give them a heavy coat of boiled linseed 
oil, then putty up solid. Now paint the whole 
floor with a mixture of much oil and little ochre, 
for the first coat, then, after it is well dried, give 
two more coats of much ochre and little oil, finally 
finish with a coat of first rate copal varnish. This 
is an extremely durable paint for floors, in-doors or 
out, such as verandas, porticoes, and the like. A floor 
stain is best mixed with oil, and finally varnished. 
