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340 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Timely Hints for the Camper and Angler 
By Robert Page Li ncoln. 
I F, in the middle of the hot summer, you have 
gone out in the fields and you have sunken 
your spade therein for two thousand times, 
questing in vain for angle-worms, you will know 
why it is a very good idea to have some angle- 
worms on hand, in the box wherein you have 
raised them, or where you have kept them. The 
raising of angle-worms is a sort of industry that 
is as yet in its infancy. But no matter whether 
you are going to make a cent by it in profit, you 
will at least have worms when no one else has 
them, and are willing to pay good money for 
them. There may and may not be somewhat of 
science to it; the main thing being that you keep 
your box in a likely place out of the sunlight. 
If the sun is allowed in to dry the ground in the 
box there is little hope for the worms. The box 
should not be too large, nor too small; the me¬ 
dium size should be the best, and it should have 
no holes in it wherein they might crawl out. 
Some suggest cutting holes in the bottom of the 
box and covering it with wire window screen, 
which is a very good idea, or the entire bottom 
may be sacrificed, the wire screen taking its place. 
Again, a galvanized iron wash-tub may be used 
the bottom filled with small holes, the jagged 
edges sloping inward. The box, or tub, should 
be sunken almost level with the ground, and the 
box itself should be filled two-thirds of its depth 
with the richest of dirt. Into this box place 
your selected worms, which should be long, hard 
and healthy in appearance. After a rain if you 
will go out you can gather healthy worms by the 
thousands; for usually it is the healthiest worms 
that come out to take in the air. The dirt in 
the box should be changed at least twice a month, 
which is not, in my opinion, any too much. The 
crawlers are fed usually with coffee grounds 
mixed with cornmeal, same being scattered 
throughout the box once or twice a week, if 
that. They should not be overfed. Some water 
should occasionally be sprinkled* over the earth 
which will liven them up considerably. Be sure 
and keep them in a cool place, out of the stifling 
rays of the sun, and you will have worms any 
time you want them, morning, noon or night. 
That proposition of waterproofing tents has 
been laughed at by many who have not tried the 
system out and who know little or nothing about 
it. Those who have something of ingeniousness 
and inventiveness about them, however, know 
that tents can be waterproofed at home; and that 
some of the finest material, such as muslin, can 
be waterproofed, and made into tents. One of 
the lightest tents the writer of this ever had 
was very simply and inexpensively constructed 
of common muslin, which, when waterproofed, 
held for months and was so light that its weight 
was hardly at all noticeable. There are several 
methods of waterproofing muslin and light, eight- 
ounce canvas, or any canvas for that matter, so 
that it will hold out water. The solution most 
commonly in use is of sugar of lead and alum. 
For a small tent less will be needed than for a 
larger canvas. Ordinarily, four pounds of sugar 
of lead and four pounds of alum, well mixed in a 
couple of pails of soft water, lukewarm and poured 
into a tub over the tent, with an additional in¬ 
crease of water to cover it well in the tub, will 
fix you out right. Dry the tent with the water 
in it, as you take it from the tub, but not in the 
strong sunlight. When dry, the tent will be 
quite impervious to the entrance of rain. 
In tying your leaders together see to it that 
your strands match in thickness; that is to say, 
one strand should not be thicker than another, if 
you want a level leader. For the tapered lead¬ 
er, of course, this is different. Select your gut 
out of the hank carefully, and do good work. 
The leader material is first thoroughly soaked in 
tepid water to take the brittleness out of them 
and to make them pliable, so that they can be 
tied, then proceed directly they are taken from 
the water to tie them. 
After a leader is tied it is carefully gone over, 
and if it looks worthy then it is tested as to its 
strength. The leader is fastened to the wall, 
and in the back loop the scales are inserted and 
a dead pull is brought to bear upon it. For a 
medium or rather light leader a test of two 
pounds’ pull is all that is needed. For a heavier 
leader, such as heavy trout, a pull of three 
pounds may be exerted without any fear of going 
too far. If the leader breaks, then cut the gut 
two or three inches from the point of breakage, 
and re-tie. When next tested the strain brought 
to bear upon it need not go much over half its 
strength, after which it is coiled carefully up and 
placed between the moist pads of the leader box. 
The length of the leader is a matter open to 
conjecture, as it has always been. Some prefer 
the nine-foot length, and other stay by the more 
conservative six-foot length. For my part I 
think that the six-foot length is plenty and good 
enough. Upon the six-foot leader one is able 
to get on three flies, with a comparatively good 
distance between each fly. The most sportsman¬ 
like of the piscatorial gentlemen use only two 
flies, and in the west, on the mountain streams, 
where trout rise well and get caught pretty easy, 
it is considered unjust to use more than one fly. 
HOW TO READ TIME BY THE STARS. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
How do plainsmen, old woodsmen and sailors 
read time so easily by the stars? CURIOUS. 
It is an accomplishment probably through ac¬ 
tual experience and practice by such men as you 
mention, but it is easy enough if you keep only 
a few facts in mind regarding the heavens. You 
can learn not only to tell the time of night, but 
the seasons are also revealed, as everybody knows, 
by the position of the heavenly bodies. To get 
rid of all complications and technicalities, the 
secret of reading time by the stars is to pick 
out a few of the bright stars in the southern 
heavens and ascertain what astronomers call 
their “right ascension” and the “right ascension” 
of the sun. The right ascension of the sun 
changes constantly, but the ascension of the sun 
remains fixed for centuries. The best explana¬ 
tion, in simple language, for this time calcula¬ 
tion is one made by Professor Eric Doolittle of 
the University of Pennsylvania. He chooses the 
following stars (the location of which can be as¬ 
certained in any sky map) and gives their right 
ascension, as follows: 
Aldebaran. 4 hrs. 31 min. 
Betelgeuze. 5 hrs. 51 min. 
Sirius . 6 hrs. 41 min. 
Pollux . 7 hrs. 40 min. 
Delta Hydrae . 8 hrs. 33 min. 
Regulus . to hrs. 3 min. 
Delta Leonis. 11 hrs. 10 min. 
Suppose that on the evening of March 21 the 
observer saw the bright star Regulus due south 
of .him, what would the time be? Since on 
March 21 the right ascension of the sun is 
o hours, since that of Regulus is always 10 hours 
and 3 minutes, the star will come to the meridian 
10 hours 3 minutes later than the sun. It would 
therefore be 10 hours 3 minutes P. M. 
As a second illustration, let us inquire at what 
time the star Delta will be seen due south of 
the observer on April 5 and on April 20. The 
right ascension of the sun on April 5 is 1 hour; 
that of the'star is 11 hours 10 minutes; the dif¬ 
ference is 10 hours 10 minutes, and therefore 
when the star is seen due south on this date it 
will be 10 hours 10 minutes P. M. 
After acquiring a little practice the observer 
will not usually wait until the bright star whose 
right ascension he knows has actually reached 
the meridian. Bearing in mind the right ascen¬ 
sion of the sun at the time of the year he might 
perhaps estimate that the star was an hour to 
the left or to the right of the meridian. The 
time found by mentally subtracting the right as¬ 
censions would then be one hour later than the 
true time in the first case and one hour earlier 
in the second. 
A VERY CHIVALROUS SURRENDER. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Pasadena, Calif., April 21, 1915. 
I “give up” and have hauled down my flag 
of opposition, which was raised as a protest 
against the change of the Forest and Stream 
from a weekly to a monthly publication. The 
change may be likened to that of a pretty and 
bewitching miss, who after she becomes a Mrs. 
rapidly develops into a lovely, fascinating matron, 
with charming personality, and with broadened 
ideas and influence. 
I have been a constant reader of the Forest 
and Stream, almost from its birth, and under the 
pen name of “Stanstead” have been an humble 
contributor to "its columns on rod-and-gun sub¬ 
jects, covering a range of territory from Prince 
Edward’s Island across the Canadas to Vancou¬ 
ver’s Island. It really seems now but a very 
little longer between its numbers than it formerly 
did between its weekly issues, and another rea¬ 
son for this, there is now so much more good 
reading matter to go over and properly digest 
that we have hardly time to finish one number 
before a fresh one arrives. It is now certainly 
a very valuable magazine from the fact that 
most (not all) of your contributors are well 
versed and experts in their subjects, and their 
articles are of great value as educators, not only 
to your younger readers but also to us members 
of the “old guard” who will to the last continue 
to “boost” up your subscription list if possible to 
the “million mark.” N. P. LEACH. 
