Note 4 — Chapter III · FOOD

I cannot emphasize too often the absolute importance of keeping a clean camp. Mr. Rutger Jewett, to whom this camping manual and its author are indebted for many wise suggestions, thinks that it is not always feasible to burn up everything. “Every camp,” he writes, “has some empty tin cans. It seems to me that the best plan in this case is to have a small trench dug, far enough from the camp to avoid all disagreeable results and yet not so far away that it is inaccessible. Here cans and unburnable refuse from the kitchen can be thrown and kept covered with earth or sand to avoid flies and odors. Everything that can be burned, should be.” The only difficulty in my mind is, in case the region is hedgehog-infested, that those charming creatures will form their usual “bread-line”—this time to the trench—and add digging to their accomplishments in gnawing. However! Better rinse out your tin cans; Sis Hedgehog is less likely to mistake the can for the original delicacy.