XI. THE FUEL-WOODS OF THE FARM

"We piled with care our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney back,-
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty fore-stick laid apart
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then hovering near
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old rude-fashioned room
Burst flower-like into rosy bloom."

Whittier (Snow-Bound).

One of the first of the resources of nature to be brought into human service was fire. Lightning and other causes set wild fires going, and the savage following in their wake, found that they had done certain useful work for him. They had cut pieces of timber into lengths and shapes that were convenient to his hand. They had roasted wild roots and green fruits, and the flesh of wild animals overtaken, and had made them much more palatable. They had left piles of glowing embers beside which on a chill day he warmed himself. So he took a hint from nature, added a few sticks to the live embers, and kept the fire going. Strange that no other animal has done this simple thing! Afterwards he found out how to start a fire by rubbing wooden sticks, later by striking flint on steel, and still later by friction matches. The wonder of the savage has become commonplace.

Since cooking began, the word fireside has been synonymous with home. Fire has been the indispensable agent of many comforts, and womankind have been the keepers of it. The wildwood has furnished the fuel. In the wood there is great variety of it: fine twigs and coarse, and bark and splinters, all ready for use; and dead trees down, and green trees

standing, needing cutting. Fire was the cutting agent first employed. Trees were burned down by building fires about their bases, and then by similar process they were cut in sections. It was only for long-keeping fires that such fuel was needed: there was always excess of kindling-stuffs available for making quick fires.

All wood will burn and give forth heat, but one who knows woods will not use all kinds: it is only the degenerate

FIG. 43. Western yellow pine dismantled and ignited by lightning (U. S.
Bureau of Forestry).

modern, who will do that-who will go to the telephone and order a cord of wood without further specifications. Heavy, close-grained, hard woods as a rule burn more slowly and yield more heat than the lighter, more open-textured soft woods. Combustible resins vary the rate of burning, and the amount of heat produced: but the greatest differences in burning qualities are due to the amount of water present. A punky old log that when dry will burn like tinder, will soak up water like a sponge and, becoming "water-logged," will not

burn at all. The modern householder, who keeps his fuels under cover, can get along without knowing about woods, much that it was essential the savage should know.

Building a camp fire in the rain is a task that takes one back again to the point where he needs to know wood fuels as nature furnishes them. Certain trees, like the yellow birch, produce the needed kindling material. Strip the loose "curl" from the outside bark, resin-filled and waterproof; shake the adherent water from it, and you can ignite it with a match. Go to the birch also or to the hemlock for dry kindling wood: the dead branches remaining on the trunks make the best of fagots, and are enclosed in waterproof bark. Splinter them and put them on the hot flame from the "birch curl", increase their size as the heat rises, and soon you have a fire that will defy a moderate rain. If you want to get much heat out of a little fire, feed it with thick strips of resinous hemlock bark, or with pine knots.

These are special materials, the presence of which often determines camp sites; though excellent, they are not essential. Any ready-burning dry wood may be kindled if splintered fine enough. Skill in fire-making consists not alone in the selection of suitable materials. They must be gradually increased in size as the heat increases, but not fed larger than can be quickly brought to the igniting point. Air must be admitted to combustion as well as wood; and as the heated air rises, the sticks must be so placed as to admit fresh air freely below. It is easy to smother a nascent fire. The sticks must be so placed that as the centers are burned, the remaining portions will be fed automatically into the coals. It is easy to so pile the fuel that a big central flame will be quickly followed by a black hollow central cavity, walled in by excellent but unavailable fuel. A well built fire does not suffer sudden relapses. The qualities of a good fire are: (1) a rapid increase to the desired size, and (2) steady burning (with no great excess of heat) thereafter.

and the heat increases. They are set with thick ends upward and bases outspread, admitting air freely below. They are leaned against one another, and as they burn, they automatically come closer together.

The "top-fire" of the Adirondack woodsmen illustrates excellently a long-keeping fire, that is based on a discriminating knowledge of fuel values. Figure 45a, illustrates its construction at the start. Two water-logged chunks of hemlock that will not burn out, serve as "andirons" to hold up the sides and insure a con

form by means of kind- FIG. 45. A woodsman's long-keeping "top-fire"

ling and fagots and

a, beginning; b, well under way and ready for the rolling on of the side logs.

rungs. As live coals form, the birch poles are burned through in the middle and fall in the midst of the coals? and keep on burning. The extension of the fire outward is promoted by the upward inclination of their ends. A fire of this sort, properly begun, will continue to burn steadily through the greater part of the night, without excess of heat at the beginning, and without any further attention.

A woodsman knows there are certain fuels that burn well enough but must be avoided in camp: hemlock, for example, whose confined combustion-gases explode noisily, throwing live coals in all directions. One does not want his blankets burned full of holes. And even the householder who sits by his fireplace should know that there are woods like hickory and sassafras that burn with the fragrance of incense; woods like sumach that crackle and sing; woods like knotty pitch pine that flare and sputter and run low, and give off flames with tints as variable and as delightful as their shapes are fantastic. One who has burned knots observantly, will never order from his fuel-dealer for an open fire "clear straight-grained wood," even though he have to split it himself.

It has been the wasteful American way to pile and burn the tree-tops in the woods for riddance of them, and then to split kindling at home. With a wood famine at hand we ought to be less wasteful. Half the wood produced by a tree is in its branches. Some trees hold their branches long after they are killed by overhead shading. Others, with less resistant bark, drop them early and in an advanced stage of decay. Fagots gathered in the forest are, therefore, quite as different in their burning qualities as is the wood of the trunks. It should be the object of the following study to learn at first hand what these differences are.