“KENWOOD” SLEEPING BAG.
RUSTIC CAMP COT.
There is still an easier bed to make. A bag of stout bed ticking, filled with leaves and grass, forms an excellent mattress and has the virtue of being portable, for the bag can always be emptied, folded up, packed, and refilled at the next camp ground. A thin rubber blanket or poncho laid over this makes it an absolutely dry bed at all times. If you are to camp in a log cabin, probably the most comfortable bed for you to plan is a spring, bought at the nearest village, and nailed onto log posts a foot and a half high. With your ticking mattress filled with straw, your day lived in the great out of doors, no one will need to wish you pleasant slumber.
It is well to have a good supply of tarlatan on hand. This is finer than mosquito netting and therefore more impervious to stinging insects. If you camp in June, or the first week or so in July, you are likely in many parts of the country to find black flies, mosquitoes, and midges to battle against. There should be enough tarlatan to use over the camp bed and also enough to cover completely a hat with a brim and to fall down about the neck, where it can be tied under the collar. A more expensive head-net of black silk Brussels net can be made. This costs a good deal more, but the great advantage of it is, that the black does not alter the colors of the world out upon which one looks. Don’t make any mistake about the importance of some kind of netting and fly dope, or “bug juice,” as the antidotes for insect bites are sometimes called. There are various kinds of fly dope, any one of which is likely to prove useful. There is an excellent recipe for the making of your own fly dope in Breck’s “Way of the Woods,” which I give here.[6] A tiny vial of ammonia will also prove useful. One drop on a bite will often stop further poisoning from an insect sting. Inquiries should always be made beforehand whether one is likely to encounter black flies and midges. Those who have met them once are not likely to wish to have a second unprotected meeting. They are the pests of the woods and the wilderness.
[6] “Breck’s Dope:
| Pine tar | 3 | oz. |
| Olive oil | 2 | “ |
| Oil pennyroyal | 1 | “ |
| Citronella | 1 | “ |
| Creosote | 1 | “ |
| Camphor (pulverized) | 1 | “ |
| Large tube carbolated vaseline. | ||
Heat the tar and oil and add the other ingredients; simmer over slow fire until well mixed. The tar may be omitted if disliked.”
I will give, just as they occur to me, a few other articles which will be useful in the camp life: a small cake of camphor to break over things in the knapsack and keep off crawlers; a small emergency box containing surgeon’s plaster and the usual things; vaseline, witch hazel; jack knife; tool kit; a map of the region in which you are camping and a diary in which to take notes. To these might be added sewing articles, a sleeping bag if you care to use one, and a folding brown duck waterpail. The catalog from any sporting goods place will suggest a thousand other articles which you may care to have.