Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

336 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFThard soap, you have merely to stir Into the aboveas soon as it is poured out, some salt, in the proportionof two or three pints to five gallons ofsoap. A little powdered rosin added gradually toihe melted tallow, before mixing with the lye, willmake the soap firmer. Soap can be made withoutboiling, but it takes longer.Lye-Running.—Only the ashes of hardwoods aregood for lye; those of resinous woods will not mixwith the fat in boiling. The woods richest in potashare hickory, sugar maple, ash, beech and buckeye.The poisonous kernels of buckeye are soapyand can be used to cleanse fine fabrics. As lyeis often useful to a backwoods tanner, and forother purposes, it may be worth while to put up anash-hopper at a permanent camp. Take a sectionof hollow tree, or a barrel with both heads knockedout, or with auger holes bored in bottom. Standit on a wide board that is elevated high enoughfor a bucket to stand below it. Cut a Y-shapedgroove in the board part way around the bottomof the barrel and out to front of board. Tilt theboard a little and fasten it so that the liquor fromthe barrel will follow the grooved channel to thefront of the board and thus trickle into a pail setbelow it. Now put two or three layers of smallround sticks in the bottom of the barrel, laying eachcourse crosswise of the one below, cob-house fashion,and on top of this lay a couple of inches of strawor coarse grass; then put your ashes in the barrel,tamping them down firmly as they are shoveled in;make a funnel-shaped depression in the top and poura bucket of rainwater into it. It will be fromhalf a day to a day before the leach will run.Thereafter keep some water standing In the depression,adding only when the other water has disappeared.If the ashes have been firmly tamped,the leach will only trickle through, and that iswhat you want. The first run will be strongenough to cut grease; later runs should be putth»-oueh twice. Such lye needs no boiling down.