86 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
Study 11. Fuel-woods of the Farm 
The work of this study should be conducted in the wood-lot 
or in a bit of native forest, where there is a great variety of ' 
woody plants, big and little, living and dead. There should 
be found a few trees fallen and rotting; a few, broken by 
storms or shattered by lightning; some, diseased by fungi or 
eaten by beetles or ants; dead snags, tunneled by wood- 
peckers; old boles tattooed by sapsuckers; sprouting 
stumps; and scattered weaklings smothered by lustier com- 
petitors—in short, the usual wildwood mixture of sorts and 
conditions. 
The tools needed will be a pocket knife and a hatchet or a 
brick-hammer to split and splinter with. The modern con- 
venience of matches will be allowed to all. A few axes and 
cross-cut saws may be taken for common use. To save the 
axes from certain abuse, chopping blocks should be provided 
in advance. 
The program of work will consist of: (1) a gathering of 
fuel stuffs from the wood-lot; and (2) a testing of them in 
fire-making. 
1. The wood-lot should first be explored for fire-making 
materials. Quick-kindling stuff will be wanted chiefly for 
this brief exercise. These are of several categories: (a) “dead 
and down” stuffs in the woods, the result of nature’s pruning 
and thinning. Nature has placed good fire-making materials 
handy. As you collect, observe what kinds of trees hold their 
dead branches longest and preserve them most free from 
decay. If there are shattered trunks within reach, knock off 
the shattered ends and try them for kindling. Compare 
splintering with chopping as a means of preparing kindling- 
stuff from dry softwood. 
(b) Resinous stuffs, such as the “‘curl’ of the outer bark of 
the yellow birch, the bark strips from hemlock and other 
conifers, pine knots from rotted logs, etc. These will be the 
