In the month of June in the year 1851, the following brief text appeared in the "The Photographic Art-Journal" Vol. 1, No. 6 (June 1851) pg. 379, under the heading "GOSSIP": - - - - - - - -- We have received the following anonymous communication, which we publish for the valuable hint it conveys. There is generally too much neglect in plate cleaning. MESSRS. EDITORS.-- If you deem the following worth an insertion in your Journal, you have it freely. A Daguerreotype plate is like a field of waving grass, which you wish to cut, that the honey bee may extract the sweets from the juicy stubble. A vigorous arm and a keen blade will alone effect the object. So on the delicate surface of silver, if you would make a picture, cut it away, rapidly, evenly, lightly, and you have the metal with a surface of open pores ready to receive the traces from the faintest sunbeam. Work with a laggard hand, and like the indolent farmer pressing down the stubble with his dull edged scythe, you crowd over the texture of the delicate silver, and fill up with foreign matter its innumerable pores. -------------------------------------------------------------- 06-06-98