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 enclosedin 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 bya 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: 
(1) arapid increase to the desired size, and (2) steady burning 
(with no great excess of heat) thereafter. 
