_- . fish were cleaned and ready to be 

 i.c\ broiled, the children found a wonder- 

 ful fire already made, with no smoke 

 or flame, but with even, strong heat. 

 It was made from charcoal, which had 

 been bought from Caesar, our Italian 

 neighbor down in the valley. He had 

 —„, Nv^^j learned to use it in Italy, and always 

 \~^^^Sr made and kept a good supply on hand. 

 Some of it he sold at a fair price, for 

 it is a clean, cheap fuel. All we had 

 needed for our fish had cost only a few 

 cents — though Caesar had wanted to 

 give it to us, — "you soocha gooda 

 peop'," he said. (The truth is, that 

 Caesar and his folks are the such good 

 people!) We had carried it to the fish- 

 ing place in a light paper bag, and it 

 served our purpose exactly. 



IV/IOST of us have forgotten the use 

 ^'* of charcoal, and have begun to 

 overlook the use of wood for making 

 heat. Time was when all our best 

 ''Sijff ^ meat was smoked over smouldering 

 il'^J/-, hickory, which cured it through and 

 "■ " through and gave it a delightful flavor. 



Nowadays, we look for short-cuts and 

 paint our meat with creosote under the 

 ''J^Y (4§k fancy name of Liquid Smoke, or some 

 other fine-sounding phrase, invented 

 by a city advertising man who never 

 may have known what real smoked 

 '.■^ A meat is. 



In some places they still use quan- 

 tities of chestnut wood in brass foun- 

 dries because it makes just the right 

 heat for melting the metal to make the 

 castings. Many small bakeries still 

 use wood, and claim that no other fuel 

 is as good for baking bread; vessels 

 put in Key West regularly to get the 

 button-wood which grows on the Flor- 

 ida Keys and burns in the cooks' gal- 

 leys with no smoke and little ash. 

 One whole section of the Louisville and 

 Nashville Railroad, in west Florida, 

 is run by wood-burning locomotives, 

 or was so run only a year or so ago. 

 These locomotives used the resinous 

 lightwood of longleaf pine, mainly from 



the old roots, and the train stopped 

 often at track-side wood-racks to refill 

 the tender, stacking it high with the 

 twisted and knotted stump wood. 

 From the point of view of the traveler 

 one can not wholly favor it. In the 

 hot summer the car windows could 

 not be kept closed, and the flakes of 

 tarry soot came floating in to stick to 

 everything they touched, like thick, 

 greasy, black cobwebs. But every cord 

 of wood saved a ton of coal. 



•yilAT is what we must all think of 

 now. There are thousands of 

 cords of good wood going to waste. 

 The skeletons of blight-killed chestnut 

 trees point accusing fingers to heaven, 

 in all our north Atlantic states. They 

 show so plainly that they seem almost 

 to say, "Come take us away from here 

 where we are so naked and ashamed. 

 Let us burn for you, instead of stand- 

 ing here as records of man's careless- 

 ness." It is so easy to persuade our- 

 selves that the work will not pay for 

 itself! When we try, we are likely to 

 find that it does pay, and we are likely 

 to learn more and more that it always 

 pays to practice thrift. 



■MOW is the time to spot the dead- 

 topped, and crooked, and diseased 

 trees, and the time to mark the wild 

 cherries that are not likely to furnish 

 good timber, but are harbors for the 

 tent caterpillars that do so much harm 

 to orchard and woodlot. The removal 

 of all these types of trees will make the 

 woodlot better, and cordwood cut this 

 summer will be well-seasoned for next 

 winter's use, if it is split and piled. The 

 work may be done on most farms, with 

 the extra summer help, during the per- 

 iod between haying time and the early 

 grains at the beginning of the season, 

 and the final fall harvests. The poor 

 trees make good enough wood for burn- 

 ing, and when they are gone the other 

 trees have a chance to grow straight. 



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