The prints are now ready to mount.  This is by no means the least difficult nor the least important of the many processes necessary to secure a successful picture.  Even if care has been exercised in all the other processes, yet if the prints are carelessly mounted they will not look well.

The prints should be wet in clean water and laid in a pile upon each other, with their faces down.  It is necessary to have a very adhesive paste to make the prints stick well to the mounts.  There are some pastes that are manufactured for this purpose, but it is very easy to make one which will work equally well.

Boiled laundry starch, with the addition of a little white glue, is perhaps the best; it can be easily made, and with the addition of a few drops of carbolic acid will keep well.  It is made in the proportion of one and three-quarter ounces of starch, mixed with one ounce of water, till it is a smooth paste, as thin as cream, and eighty grains of glue added with fourteen ounces of water.  The whole should be well boiled and six drops of carbolic acid added.  This can be put in a bottle and will keep a long time.

After the water is pressed from the wet prints a bristle brush is dipped in the paste and drawn back and forth over the print, till it is thoroughly covered.

The position on the mount should have been previously marked with a pencil or with pin-pricks, and when the print is well covered with paste it should be carefully lifted and put in place.  With a piece of paper laid over it and a flat paper-cutter, all the unnecessary paste and any bubbles of air may be pressed out from between the print and the mount.  With a soft cloth wipe away the paste that is pressed out around the edges of the print and then put it under a weight to dry.

If it is desired to mount prints in an album, a piece of cardboard, an eighth of an inch smaller than the print, should be placed upon the back of the print and the exposed edge covered with paste.  Put on just as little as possible and lift it in place at once, before the paste has time to dry.  Pass a soft cloth over it to press it into place and then close the album.  In less than an hour it will be dry, and if properly mounted will be firmly adhering to the page.

The one important factor for success in photography is care.  Without it, you can accomplish nothing, no matter how complete and costly your outfit may be.  With care and patience you may achieve results that will be a pleasure to your friends as well as yourself, and will give permanent existence to pleasant scenes and occasions that otherwise must be only memory pictures.

[THE END.]

FEATHER BOOKS.

Elizabeth Brightwen describes, in “Nature Notes,” her method of collecting birds’ feathers, by grouping them artistically in the page of a large album.

“The book,” she says, “should be a blank album of about fifty pages, eleven inches wide by sixteen, so as to make an upright page, which will take in long tail feathers.  Cartridge paper of various pale tints is best, as one can choose the ground that will best set off the colors of the feathers.  Every other page may be white, and about three black sheets will be useful for swan, albatross and other white-plumaged birds.