Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

50 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFT"more serviceable to the amateur woodsman than toget a good manual of American trees and then goabout identifying the species in his neighborhood.Having gained some facility in this, then let himturn to studying peculiarities of individual growth.Such self-training, which can be carried out almostanywhere, will make him observant of a thousandand one little marks and characteristics that aresign-boards and street-numbers in the wilds.What to Notice.—After a novice has had somepreliminary training of the kind I have indicated, sothat all things in the woods no longer look alike tohim, he will meet another difficulty. His memorywill be swamped! It is utterly impossible for anyman, whether he be red, white, black, or yellow, tostore up in his mind all the woodland marks andsigns that one can see in a mile's tramp, to say nothingof the infinite diversity that he encounters in along journey. Now, here is just where a skilledwoodcraftsman has an enormous advantage over anyand all amateurs. He knows what is common, andpays no attention to it ; he knows what is uncommon,'t catches his eye at once, and it interests him, so thathe need make no effort to remember the thing. Thisdisregard for the common elimmates at once threefourths,yes, nine-tenths, of the trees, plants,rocks, etc., from his consideration; it relieves hismemory of just that much burden. He will pass ahundred birch trees without a second glance, untilhis eye is riveted by a curly birch. Why riveted?Because curly birch is valuable. In the bottomlands he will scarcely see a sour gum, or a hundredof them ; but let him come across one such tree ontop of the ridge, and he will wonder how it chancedto stray so far from home. And so on, through allcategories of woodland features. A woodsmannotices such things as infallibly, and with as littleconscious effort,lint on her neighbor's carpet.as a woman notices the crumbs andThe Homing Instinct_(?)—^We hear much