B18 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
■[June 25, 1904. 
roRT^HAN TOIMST 
Log Cabins. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. Brown's graphic description of the evolution of 
a log cabin, in a June number of your paper, reminds 
me that I have lived in one nearly twenty years. For 
more than eighteen years I lived in a tiny cabin, 8 by 
12; then put up a cabin 14 by 18, made of pine logs 
that were about one foot in diameter. 
While I clung to the small cabin, the most of my 
time was passed in the open air. I slept outdoors 
from April i, until about Christmas or New Years. 
My shelter was airy enough to be called the open air. 
A roof to keep off the rain, and walls of poultry net- 
ting to keep off the skunks. 
The small cabin was a paradise to a lazy man. One 
could sit on the deacon seat, before the stove, and 
reach about everything in the cabin. Without getting 
up, I could kindle a fire, fill the ' teakettle from the 
water pail, set the table, eat breakfast, wash and put 
away the dishes, and when ready to read or write, could 
reach books, pencil and paper in the rude bookcase at 
my back. . 
The new cabin is on a hill. It is 14 by 18, with side 
walls 5^ feet in height. The ends are logged up to 
the ridge-pole, 11 feet. There is only one outside door. 
The windows, four in number, are hinged at the top, 
so can be turned up out of the way in warm weather. 
There are two rooms, kitchen and sleeping roorn. The 
kitchen is at the front, where people out in the States 
usually place the parlor. The sleeping room is used 
for books, clothes, etc., and contains a cot-bed with 
good woolen blankets over a mattress. I sleep in the 
draft ' from the two windows, and so far have not 
thought of sleeping outside. I may come to it later on. 
Mr. Brown's self-invited guests, the borers, made 
free with the logs of my cabin. I could hear their 
augers all the time, day and night, and by October 
they had accumulated several bushels of sawdust. As 
I didn't care to entertain unknown visitors, I took the 
trouble to spy on their work. I had some short logs 
left over, and from time to time split one open to see 
what was going on inside. I found two species of 
borers. One footless, and the other with one foot. 
They were white, with black heads. They passed the 
winter in the logs in the pupa stage; the next spring 
the beetles were numerous in the cabin. One was 
over an inch in length with very long antennte. It 
was brownish green, with light marks throughout. It 
was the footless borer and the book name is Monoham- 
mus confusor. The other beetle was smaller and dark 
colored, and named Asemum moestum. 
The larva of these beetles work in the sap wood, or 
live wood; that is, wood containing cells filled with 
protoplasm. The wood beneath the sap wood is dead, 
and the cells are filled with woody fibres. Without 
doubt the borers feed on the contents of the cells, 
which are nutritious and not on sour sap, as Mr. 
Brown's lumberman asserts. I examined the sawdust 
and found it to be rejected woody fibre. 
As wood is expensive in this locality, Cape Ann, I 
put into my cabin a No. 7 cooking range, and last 
winter used nut coal. 
I cut the lumber for the new cabin a year ago last 
November. The bark had set, and I knew it would 
not peel off as it will if cut when the sap is active. 
When I moved into the cabin in the spring the 
logs were shrinking, so I did not think it safe to 
cement the cracks until fall. Meantime, I caulked be- 
tween the logs with a moss that was ready to hand, and 
was much like oakum. I find this moss on the bot- 
tom of pond holes where water stands in the winter, 
and it can be rolled up readily, as it lies in thick sheets. 
I used it wet, which is the proper way, and I found 
that it was nearly impossible to remove it when I substi- 
tuted cement. I used cement to keep the woods mice 
out. I cemented the floor and underpinning for the same 
reason. 
Mr. Brown mentions entertaining visitors; but I 
think I can go him one or two better, for my register 
contains 1,406 names, entered since January 17, 1904, 
five months. 
I am proud of my new cabin, not on account of its 
beauty, or usefulness, but because it is mostly my own 
handiwork. The logs were green and heavy, and I was 
obliged to do a lot of brain work to overcome the 
law of gravitation. 
The old-time log camp, such as was built in Maine 
in the days of the "pumpkin pine," is seldom seen now, 
even in the logging swamps of that State. It was a 
low camp, the sides not over two feet in height. The 
fire was on the ground in the center of the camp, and 
the men slept in berths, side by side, instead of single 
iDunks. The terms used in and about these old camps . 
still cling to my memory, and I herewith name a few, 
just for old tiimes: 
"Smoke hole, smoke ribs, bean hole, spread, berth, 
deacon seat, dingle, wangun chest, splits, hounds, 
hooks, Kennebeckers, dundyfunks and doughgods." 
The smoke ribs were ribs next the ridge-pole. On 
these two ribs the polef for the smoke hgl? were laid 
up cob-house style, three feet , or more above the top 
of the camp. The bean hole was a hole in the ground 
at one end of the fire, where beans were baked, cov- 
ered with hard wood coals. The spread was a thick 
comforter. The berth was on each side of the fire. 
Usually each berth was wide enough for one-half the 
crew. The men sleeping side by side; the spread was 
long enough to cover all. Fir boughs, covered by a 
blanket spread, was the usual bed. The deacon seat 
run along the foot of -the berths, on each side of the 
.fire, and was made from halves of logs. The dingle 
was a space at one end of the cabin, reserved for sur- 
plus clothing, etc. _ The wangun chest, was commonly 
a dry goods box in which tobacco and clothing were 
kept to sell to the men. Its proper place was in the 
dingle. Splits were a sort of shingle, three feet long 
and half an inch thick, used to cover the camp. 
Hounds Were seats for one. They were made from 
the top of spruce trees with limbs for legs. Hooks 
were made from small spruce shrubs. One about three- 
fourths' of an inch through fills the bill. Cut the stem off 
about four inches below four or five thrifty twigs. Cut 
twigs same length and cut out the stem above the twigs. 
Peel the bark off and bend back the twigs, and fasten 
them to the stem. Hang up near the fire to season. 
When well seasoned, cut the twigs off and whittle to 
Provisions for the Wilderness* 
Editor Forest and Stream: ■ 
All over the Hudson's Bay territory, in making trips, 
be It m winter or summer, there is a scale of provisions 
upon which a safe result can be assured. For each 
person of the party, per diem, the following is allowed, 
and that is multiplied by the supposed number of days 
that the trip is likely to last. Moreover, for each seven 
days calculated on, an extra full day's rations is thrown 
in, this is for safety in case of some tirilooked for 
accident. 
Provisions per man, per day: 2 pounds of flour (or 
pounds of sea biscuits), i pound of fat mess pork, 
2 ounces of sugar, J4 ounce of tea, 2 ounces of peas (or 
same of barley), ^ ounce of carbonate of soda, and 
1/2 ounce of salt. 
The peas or barley are intended to be cooked during 
the night's encampment with any game the route may 
have produced through the day. With such rations I have 
traveled with large and small parties, sometimes with 
Indians only, and at others with Indian and Canadian 
voyagers mixed; have penetrated the wildest parts of 
two provinces, in canoes and on snowshoes, and was 
never short a meal. I admit that with the wasteful 
and improvident character of the Indians, the leader 
THE OLD CABIN. 
Photo by Shelly W. Denton. 
a sharp point, and you have good hooks for wet stock- 
ings and mittens. In the old camps there was always 
a row of these hooks hanging from the smoke ribs. 
The hooks were tied to pegs. Nails, one hundred miles 
"up river," were luxuries, and beech pegs were sharp- 
ened and driven into the logs where needed. 
Kennebeckers were any thing in which the men 
carried their clothes. A carpet bag was the usual thing, 
and was often kicked about in the dingle. Dundyfunks 
were concoctions of the cook. They were made of 
meal, molases, fat pork and doughgods. Doughgods 
were hunks of boiled dough, seasoned with vinegar. 
There were many other odd expressions heard around 
these old camps. "Stags" were made from old boots 
by removing the legs, and were much in use about the 
fire. "Out in the States," was a common expression, 
and meant out of the woods. The cook at night 
would call out: "Nine o'clock! Spread down!" Then 
the big spread would be rolled down from the head 
of the berth and the men would crawl under it, each 
in his proper place, which he knew by its "heading." 
In the morning the crew was aroused by the cook 
calling: 
"T-u-r-n o-u-t! Bean-on-table!" 
"Bough down'," was heard on Sunday when the men 
picked fir boughs to "bough down" the berths. 
I stop here, by suggesting to Mr. Brown, that he 
can make a few "hooks" and "hounds" for his camp, 
or cabin. I am barred, because sprv!?? cjoes not grow 
on Cape Ann, onlfxn rare cases, Hbrmjt, 
of the party must use due care and watchfulness over 
his outfit and see it is not wrongly used. 
Take, for instance, the provisions for a party of seven 
men for fifteen 'days, the weight aggregates 347 pounds,^ 
and is of formidable bulk; and when the necessary camp- 
ing paraphernalia, tents, blankets, kettles and frying- 
pans, are piled on the beach alongside the eatables, 
the sight is something appalling, and the crew is apt 
to think what an unnecessary quantity of provisions; 
but before the journey is over we hear nothing about 
there being too much grub. Long hours, hard work 
and the keen, bracing atmosphere gives the men ap- 
petites that fairly astonish even themselves. 
If a party is to return on the outgoing trail, and 
after being off a few days finds it is using within the 
scale of provisions, it is very easy to cache a portion 
for the home journey with a certainty of finding it 
"after many days," that is, if properly secured. . If in 
the depth of winter, and there is a likelihood of wolves 
or wolverines coming that way, a good and safe way 
is to cut a hole in the ice some distance from the 
shore on some big lake, cutting almost through to the 
water. Into this trench put what is required to be left 
behind, filling up with the chopped ice, tramp this well 
down, then pour several kettles of water on top. This 
freezes at once, making it as difficult to gnaw or 
scratch into as would be the side of an ironclad. I 
have come on such a cache after an absence of three 
weeks to find the droppings of wolves and foxes about, 
but th^ contents untoughecj, Qne cou}4 not help 
