Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-17
LIVING OUT OF DOORS
Large Increase Noted in
Number of Campers.
REWRITING TO NATURE
FREEDOM OF LIFE IN THE WILL
DERNEsS ATTRACTS MANY.
Some of the Benefits Derived From Tent
Life - How to Make an
Ideal Camp.
REWRITING TO NATURE
Written Cor The Star.

krlttsn Cor The Star.
Late in the day, but happily not too late,
we have learned a lesson. No longer do
we ravtsh the woodlands thoughtlessiy
with axe and fire No longer do we look
on every place of swift waters as a spot
made for factory or offal pit.
Priceless forests have fallen. Precious
waters have been turned into walled drains.
But there are enough left still and many
are being reclaimed-reclaimed by man,
who, having robbed nature, finds that he
has robbed himself ard is now trying TO
give the spoil back to her that she may
make it beautiful once more.
We makers of cities have discovered that
we were Frankensteins. making monsters
that demand our blood and brain Each
year more thousands of us flee for a time
to sit under the patient. unfrettng trees
Each year more thousands learn how easy
1t Is to slip off the thin drapery of civil!za-
tion and become happy savages for
space.
Twenty years ago the man who went
into the wilderness to camp was looked
upon by the rest of his world as a daring
person of an adventurous mold. Today
men and women make the annual camping
trip as complacently as they used to pack
up to go to a summer hCtei
Twenty years ego men went camping
for fun Today they go can ping not merely
FOR fun, but as necessary part of their
life.
Frankenstein's monster has scared
FrankenStein. He runs away to look I'M
der the green trees for the big medicine
that wind and weather brew there forever.
ParadoXicaly. the growing scarcity Of
game has increased the number of campers.
Twenty years ago, when shooting was
fairly good still in hundreds of places
where no eye, however keen. find trail
OF game animal or feather of game bird to-
day. the men who sought the wilderness
went primarily to hunt. So keen We're they
for shooting that they besrudged the time
spent In making camp. Only the choicest
spirits loved the camp as well as they did
the hCnt
Many of the best sportsmen of that day
used 10 take men along for the express pur-
pose Of pitching camp and attending to its
duties-not because they disliked the work,
but because they burned with the fever OF
the chase. Hardly had the canoes touched
the shore of the camping place or the
packs been dropped at the end of the trail,
before they unbuckled tie gun case.
Camping VS.. Hunting.
Today sportsmen care more for the find
ing and trailing of the game than the kill
Ing. With the growing scarcity of beast
and fowl they have grown less eager to
make big bags" They have more time
for the camp. and with the greater proper
ton Of them the camp has become the chief
part Of the hunting.
Again, while game has decreased IN most
places, fishing has improved, owing to
wholesale restocking and intelligent preser-
Walton Thus more and more men turn
each year TO the rod, and the camp and
angling go together as placid twins.
The American business man awoke TO the
love for camping, without loss of that time
which is so pre-eminenuy money In the
United States of America. He justified
Kip.!ng's poeticaI reference TO him as one
who turns a keen. untroubled eye home to
the instant need of things" for today he
offers the camper everything from tent
scarcely bigger than blanket when folded
to nails, staples. water bottles and
matches. made especially for campers.
once a catalogue OF thirty or forty pages
was ample 10 tell about everything that the
sporting goods dealer had to offer. Now
there are scores of houses that issue cata-
logues Of 100 pages and more.
y man can walk into a sporting dealers
store and in an hour be supplied with an
outfit that shall have everything in II from
shoes TO food for a three months trip into
any traCkless place on earth.
SO great has the business Of furnishing
camping supplies become that the hardest
thing for the would-be camper is to find
out what not to take If man were to go
through the catalogues faithfully and buy
everything that is labeled Indispensable