CAMPING AND WOODCRAFT, VOL. 1

CAMPING AND WOODCRAFT, VOL. 1

By Horace Kephart

Excerpt from Preface The present work is based upon my Book of Camping and Woodcraft, which appeared in 1906. All of the original material here retained has been revised, and so much new matter has been added that this is virtually a new work, filling two volumes instead of one. My first book was intended as a pocket manual for those who travel where there are no roads and who perforce must go light. I took little thought of the fast-growing multitude who go to more accessible places and camp out just for the pleasure and healthfulness of open-air life. It had seemed to me that outfitting a party for fixed camp within reach of wagons was so simple that nobody would want advice about it. But I have learned that such matters are not so easy to the multitude as I had assumed; and there are, to be sure, "wrinkles," plenty of them, in equipping and managing stationary camps that save trouble, annoyance, or expense. Consequently I am adding several chapters expressly for that class of campers, and I treat the matter of outfitting much more fully than before. It is not to be supposed that experienced travelers will agree with me all around in matters of equipment. Every old camper has his own notions about such things, and all of us are apt to be a bit dogmatic. As Richard Harding Davis says, "The same article that one declares is the most essential to his comfort, health, and happiness is the very first thing that another will throw into the trail. A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor. I have heard veterans sitting around a camp-fire proclaim the superiority of their kits with a jealousy, loyalty, and enthusiasm they would not exhibit for the flesh of their flesh and the bone of their bone. On a campaign you may attack a man's courage, the flag he serves, the newspaper for which he works, his intelligence, or his camp manners, and he will ignore you; but if you criticise his patent water-bottle he will fall upon you with both fists."

Contents I. Vacation Time

II. Outfitting

III. Tents for Fixed Camps

IV. Furniture, Tools, and Utensils for Fixed Camps

V. Tents for Shifting Camps

VI. Types of Light Tents

VII. Light Camp Equipment

VIII. Camp Bedding

IX. Clothing

X. Personal Kits

XI. Provisions

XII. Camp Making

XIII. The Camp-fire

XIV. Pests of the Woods

XV. Dressing and Keeping Game and Fish

XVI. Camp Cookery - M