FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM 83 



burn at all. The modern householder, who keeps his fuels 

 under cover, can get along without knowing about woods, 

 much that it was essential the savage should know. 



Building a camp fire in the rain is a task that takes one back 

 again to the point where he needs to know wood fuels as 

 nature furnishes them. Certain trees, like the yellow birch, 

 produce the needed kindling material. Strip the loose 

 ''curl" from the outside bark, resin-filled and waterproof; 

 shake the adherent water from it, and you can ignite it with a 

 match. Go to the birch also or to the hemlock for dry 

 kindling wood: the dead branches remaining on the trunks 

 make the best of fagots, and are enclosed in waterproof bark. 

 Splinter them and put them on the hot flame from the 

 "birch curl", increase their size as the heat rises, and soon you 

 have a fire that will defy a moderate rain. If you want to 

 get much heat out of a little fire, feed it with thick strips of 

 resinous hemlock bark, or with pine knots. 



These are special materials, the presence of which often 

 determines camp sites ; though excellent, they are not essen- 

 tial. Any ready-burning dry wood may be kindled if splin- 

 tered fine enough. Skill in fire-making consists not alone in 

 the selection of suitable materials. They must be gradually 

 increased in size as the heat increases, but not fed larger than 

 can be quickly brought to the igniting point. Air must be 

 admitted to combustion as well as wood; and as the heated 

 air rises, the sticks must be so placed as to admit fresh air 

 freely below. It is easy to smother a nascent fire. The 

 sticks must be so placed that as the centers are burned, the 

 remaining portions will be fed automatically into the coals. 

 It is easy to so pile the fuel that a big central flame will be 

 quickly followed by a black hollow central cavity, walled in 

 by excellent but unavailable fuel. A well built fire does not 

 suffer sudden relapses. The qualities of a good fire are: 

 (i) a rapid increase to the desired size, and (2) steady burning 

 (with no great excess of heat) thereafter. 



