Ration Lists, Four Men, Two Weeks (56 Rations)

Meat of any kind will quickly mould ow spoil if packed in tins from which air is not exhausted. Put pork, bacon, or ham in loose cheesecloth bags that can be hung up in camp, and pack fchem in parchment paper for transit; so also cheese. Flour, meal, cereals, vegetables, and dried fruits go in stout bags. Ordinary flour sacks are loo weak, and wet through too easily. Salt, as it draws moisture, is best carried in a wooden box or screw-top wooden mailing tubes; butter, coffee, tea, sugar, jam, etc., in pry-up tin cans. Camp outfitters supply small bags and tins of various sizes that stow in waterproof provision bags, and it saves trouble to buy them ready-made. Label everything plainly.

One of the handiest things in a camper's kit is surgeon's rubber adhesive plaster. This can be purchased at any drugstore. A ten-yard spool each of the one-inch and two-inch widths will be useful in a hundred ways. This plaster is waterproof and air-tight. It will stick to any dry surface (wood, metal, glass, cloth, leather, or skin), and will stay there until purposely removed; yet it can be peeled off and reapplied many times. As an instantaneous mender of rents and stopper of holes or cracks it has no equal.

One of the most bothersome things in shifting camp is to secure opened cans and bottles from spilling. Surgeon's plaster does the trick in a twinkling. Put a little square of it over each hole in the milk can that you opened for breakfast, and there will be no leakage. To hold a cork in a bottle, stick a narrow strip of the plaster over the cork and down opposite sides of the bottle's neck. To protect the bottle from breaking, run a strip around it at top and one at bottom.

The caps of baking powder cans or similar tins can be secured to the bodies in the same way. With a broad strip you can seal a box or chest water-tight, stop a leak in a canoe, or mend a broken rod, a paddle, a gunstock, or even an axe-handle (first nailing it). A chest or cupboard can be extemporized from any packing box, in a jiffy, by cleating the top and using surgeon's plaster for hinges.

Camp chests are very convenient when it is practicable to carry them; but they should be small, weighing not over fifty or sixty pounds each when packed, so that one man can easily handle them unassisted. If they are specially made, Cottonwood is the best material (if thoroughly seasoned boards can be had—otherwise it warps abominably). It is the strongest and toughest wood for its weight that we have, and will not splinter. For the ends and lids of small chests, 5/8-inch stuff is thick enough, and 3/8-inch for the sides, bottoms, and trays. The bottom should have a pair of 8/5 inch cleats for risers and the top a similar pair to keep it from warping, unless the chests are to go on pack animals. Strap-hinges and hasp, a brass padlock and broad leather end-straps (not drop-handles) should be provided, and the chest painted.

The best size is 24x18x9 inches, this being convenient for canoes and pack-saddles. A pine grocery box of this size, with 3/4-inch ends and 3/8-inch sides, top, and bottom, weighs only 10 pounds, and will answer the purpose very well. Screw a wooden handle on each end, say 5x2 inches, with a hand-hold gouged out of the under side.

Check off every article in the outfit as it is stowed, and keep the inventory for future reference. Then note what is left over at the end of the trip. This will help in outfitting for the next season.