Manual of Military Training / Second, Revised Edition

by James A. Moss

[1893]. 1. Always keep your pencils sharpened and have an eraser handy. No one but an expert can sketch with a dull pencil.

2. Use hard pencils when learning to sketch—4H to 6H—and go over your work afterwards with a softer pencil—2H.

3. Do not try to put down on your sketch a mass of small details that are too small to be shown on the scale at which you are sketching. For example, if you are making a sketch on a scale of 3 inches = 1 mile, do not try to show each house in a row of houses; simply indicate that there is a row of houses, by putting down several distinct conventional signs for houses in a row; nor should you try to show every little "cut" through which the road may run. Only use about one sign to the inch of telegraph or telephone lines, for wire fences, etc.

4. When first practicing sketching only plot the route over which you walk, indicating it by a single line. When you can do this with facility, go back over one of these plotted routes and fill in the woods, houses, streams and the other large features.

5. The beginner should sketch the same ground several times over—at least three or four times. Practice alone will make perfect.

6. Always try to compare your finished sketch with an accurate map of the ground, if one is obtainable. Try to practice on ground of which you can obtain a map.

7. Make each course (the distance you go between points where the direction of your route changes) as long as possible.

8. Do not try to contour until you are expert at making a sketch showing all the flat details (roads, streams, woods, houses, etc.).

9. Never try to "sketch in" the contours until you have plotted the stream lines or the direction of the valleys, ravines, etc. The contours are fitted to or sketched around the drainage system; not the drainage system to the contours.

10. Always "size up" ground before you sketch it; that is, take a general view of it, noticing the drainage system (the direction in which the streams flow or ravines run), the prominent hills and ridges, the direction the roads run, etc.