monly called box elder) has similar qualities; also that of the striped maple (moosewood, striped or swamp dogwood), but this tree seldom grows large enough to be worth using. There is a decided maple flavor in the sap of the shellbark hickory. A good sirup can be concocted by steeping a handful of the dried and crushed inner bark of this tree in hot water to a strong "tea" and adding sufficient brown sugar. An extract commercially made from the bark is used in making a spurious "maple sirup" out of cane or corn sirup. It is safe to say that not one-tenth of the alleged maple sugar and sirup now on the market is free from this or similar adulteration. As a backwoods expedient, sirup may be made from the abundant and sugary sap of the black birch (sweet birch). In times of scarcity the pods of the honey locust have been utilized to the same end. They must be used within a month after maturity; later they become bitter. BEVERAGES None of our native plants contain principles that act upon the nerves like the caffein of coffee or the thein of tea; consequently all substitutes for coffee and tea are unsatisfying, except merely as hot drinks of agreeable taste. Millions of war-bound people are suffering this deprivation now. In the South, during the Civil War, many pitiful expedients were tried, such as decoctions of parched meal, dried sweet potatoes, wheat, chicory, cottonseed, persimmon-seed, dandelion-seed, and the seeds of the Kentucky coffee-tree. Better substitutes for coffee were made from parched rye, from the seeds of the coffee senna (Cassia occidentalis) called "Magdad coffee," and from the parched and ground seeds of okra. Governor Brown of Georgia once said that the Confederates got more satisfaction out of the goldenrod flowers than out of any other makeshift for coffee. "Take the bloom," he directed, "dry it, and boil to an extract" (meaning tincture). Teas, so-called, of very good flavor can be made from the dried root-bark of sassafras, or from its early buds, from the bark and leaves of spicewood, from the leaves of chicory, ginseng, dittany, the sweet goldenrod (Solidago odora), and cinquefoil. Other plants used for the purpose are Labrador tea, Oswego tea, and (inferior) New Jersey tea. Our pioneers also made decoctions of chips of the arbor-vitae (white cedar) and of sycamore, the dried leaves of black birch, and the tips of hemlock boughs, sweetening them with maple sugar; but here we approach the list of medicinal teas, which is well-nigh endless. The Indians made a really good "maple tea" by boiling sassafras-root bark for a short time in maple sap. Agreeable summer drinks can be made by infusing the sour fruit of the mountain ash (Pyrus Americana), from sumac berries (dwarf and staghorn), and from the fruit of the red mulberry. The sweet sap of both hard and soft maples, box elder, and the birches (except red birch) is potable. Small beer can be made from the sap of black birch, from the pulp of honey locust pods, the fruit of the persimmon, shoots and root-bark of sassafras, and the twigs of black and red spruce. Cider has been made from the fruit of crab-apples and service-berries. CONDIMENTS Vinegar can be made from maple or birch sap, or from fruit juices, by diluting with water and adding a little yeast. The very sour berries of sumac turn cider into vinegar, or they may be used alone. Our fields and forests afford many pleasant condiments for flavoring. Sassafras, oil of birch, wintergreen, peppermint and spearmint will occur to every ́ one. Balm, sweet marjoram, summer savory and tansy are sometimes found in wild places, where they have escaped from cultivation. The rootstock of sweet cicely has a spicy taste, with a strong odor of anise, and is edible. Sweet gale gives a pleasant flavor to soups and dressings. The seeds of tansy mustard were used by the Indians in flavoring dishes. Wild garlic ("ramps"), wild onions, peppergrass, snowberry and spicewood may be used for similar purposes. Perhaps the greatest privation that a civilized man suffers, next to having no meat, is to lack salt and tobacco. In the old days they used to burn the outside of meat and sprinkle gunpowder on it in lieu of salt; but in this age of smokeless powder we are denied even that consolation. The ashes of plants rich in nitre, such as tobacco, Indian corn, sunflower, and the ashes of hickory bark, have been recommended. Coville says that the ash of the palmate-leaf sweet coltsfoot (Petasites palmata) was highly esteemed by western Indians as a substitute for salt. "To obtain the ash the stem and leaves were first rolled up into balls while still green, and after being carefully dried they were placed on top of a very small fire on a rock, and burned." Perhaps a better plan is to make lye by pouring boiling water on wood ashes, strain, and evaporate to a white crystalline alkali. Use sparingly. Many Indians, even civilized ones like some of the eastern Cherokees, do not use salt to this day. Strange to say, the best substitute for salt is sugar, especially maple sugar or sirup. One soon can accustom himself to eat it even on meat. Among some of the northern tribes, maple sirup not only takes the place of salt in cooking, but is used for seasoning the food after it is served. Wild honey, boiled, and the wax skimmed off, has frequently served me in place of sugar in my tea, in army bread, etc. KINNIKINICK Men who use tobacco can go a good while hungry without much grumbling, so long as the weed holds out. Thou who, when cares attack, Bidd'st them avaunt! and Black Perching, unseatest! But let tobacco play out, and they are in a bad way! Substitutes for it may be divided into those that are a bit better than nothing and those that are worse. Among the latter may be rated tea. Yes, tea is smoked by many a poor fellow in the far North! It is said to cause a most painful irritation in the throat, which is aggravated by the cold air of that region. Certainly it can have no such effect on the nerves as tobacco, for it is full of tannin, and tannin destroys nicotin. Kinnikinick is usually made of poor tobacco mixed with the scrapings or shavings of other plants, although the latter are sometimes smoked alone. Chief of the substitutes is the red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) or the related silky cornel (C. sericea) commonly miscalled red willow. These shrubs are very abundant in some parts of the North. The dried inner bark is aromatic and very pungent, highly narcotic, and produces in those unused to it a heaviness sometimes approaching stupefaction. Young shoots are chosen, or such of the older branches as still keep the thin, red outer skin. This skin is shaved off with a keen knife, and thrown away. Then the soft, brittle, green inner bark is scraped off with the back of the knife and put aside for use; or, if wanted immediately, it is left hanging to the stem in little frills and is crisped before the fire. It is then rubbed between the hands into a form resembling leaf tobacco, or is cut very fine with a knife and mixed with tobacco in the proportion of two of bark to one of the latter. A more highly prized kinnikinick is made from the leaves of the bear-berry or uvą-ursi (Arctostaphylos-uva-ursi), called sacacommis by the Canadian traders, who sell it to the northern Indians for more than the price of the best tobacco. The leaves are gathered in the summer months, being then milder than in winter. Inferior substitutes are the crumbled dried leaves of the smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) and the fragrant sumac (R. aromatica), which, like tea, contain so much tannin that they generally produce bronchial irritation or sore throat. CHAPTER XXII LIVING OFF THE COUNTRY IN EXTREMIS As I said at the beginning, the supreme test of woodcraft comes when the equipment has been destroyed by some disaster. Such misfortunes are not uncommon; if we seldom hear of them it is because they happen in far-away, isolated places, and the survivors are not interviewed by the press. A man gets lost and has to wander for a week, two weeks, or longer, before he meets a human being. A canoe is smashed to bits in a rapid, a hundred miles from the nearest outpost, and the men get ashore with nothing but the clothes they stand in and the contents of their pockets. And worse has happened. Robinson Crusoe had a prentice job compared to the actual experiences of hundreds of men and women whom fate has thrown, destitute of tools or weapons, far from the paths and courses of civilization. The pity is that such disasters befall, in so many cases, people who have no knowledge of how to meet them. Helplessness breeds despair. One woodsman, at such a time, will rustle more food than a company of tenderfoots. At the worst he will find something to keep him going-something that the others, though starving, would pass by without knowing that it could give them energy. In this sort of emergency, needless to say, there is but one law: self-preservation. Game laws and other rules of sportsmanship are, for the time, nonexistent. The sufferer will kill anything that can be eaten, in any way that he can get it. If all |
