THE LIBRARY OF WORK AND PLAY
Outdoor Work

THE LIBRARY
OF WORK AND PLAY

Photograph by Helen W. Cooke.

Harvesting Nature's Crops

The Library of Work and Play

OUTDOOR WORK

BY

MARY ROGERS MILLER

Garden City     New York

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1911

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO EIGHT BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO SENT ONE ANOTHER TO COLLEGE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgment is due to the expert writers of United States government and state experiment station bulletins from which much practical information has been gained by the author; to the boys and girls who wrote for this book the stories of their success in several kinds of outdoor industry; to Dr. Burton N. Gates, State Inspector of Apiaries in Massachusetts, and Prof. James E. Rice of the Department of Poultry Husbandry at Cornell University for reading the chapters on their specialties and for numerous suggestions which make those chapters valuable; and to many others from whom helpful ideas have come in letters.

A WORD TO PARENTS

There are two sovereign cures for the ills of modern life: Work and outdoors. It is the purpose of this book on "Outdoor Work for Young People" to teach the gospel of these two remedies, not in lessons nor sermons, but in the form of confidential talks, which are intended to be both practical and inspiring.

The guiding principles in the preparation of this book are three: 1, to help young people to earn money; 2, to help them build character; 3, to help them make better citizens.

1. The most obvious reason why children wish to work is that they "want to earn money," to spend as they like. Here is a great opportunity and a considerable danger. The opportunities are to help support the family, to learn self-reliance, to gain in efficiency, to appreciate the sacrifices made by parents, to purchase innocent pleasures, and to save toward a college education. The dangers are that children may become too commercially minded, grasping, even dishonest, make dull playmates, and become stunted in character for lack of play and wholesome stimulus to the imagination. If you will analyze these dangers you will find that they are all the results of overdoing good things. The old rule of the Greeks, "Nothing too much" is the golden rule to measure perfect commercial relations between parents and children.

2. But far more important than money making is character making. And therefore one of the principles of this book is to suggest in a thousand ways that money making may go too far. For example, I would encourage boys to gather and sell nuts, but not to take nuts from a neighbour's trees without permission nor destroy young trees whose future crops belong to a future generation of boys. I encourage trapping but urge the use of humane traps to avoid cruelty. I encourage the gathering and selling certain wild flowers, if abundant, but warn against the danger of exterminating species, or of robbing the public of pleasure. I have gone over all of the things that children do out of doors and have tried to select the best occupations. I have studied the worst things they do and have suggested their opposites—constructive work that earns money, develops character, or preserves public property. For example, instead of collecting birds' eggs I suggest methods of attracting birds, building houses for them, and providing food and protection from enemies.

3. The book is addressed to the citizens of nineteen hundred and twenty. Will not busy boys and girls make better citizens than idle ones? Practical patriotism becomes second nature to children who learn early to regard the rights of others, to respect the laws, and to protect public property. The boy who raises wild fowl and liberates them or refrains from mutilating for purely selfish ends a fine tree is doing his share in the great work of conservation.

But the young workers cannot do it all. You will be disappointed if you give this book to a child for a birthday or Christmas present and expect him to "do the rest," without further help. There is no substitute for affectionate parental interest. This book will surely fail you if you do not thoroughly believe in the dignity of manual labour and experience the uplift that rewards work with your own hands. Although in theory we may all believe in the dignity of labour (for other people), many of us make mental reservations to suit our own cases and persist in regarding certain forms of labour as distinctly beneath our dignity. Children see through that attitude every time. When I used to be acquainted with the citizens of the George Junior Republic, they had a saying that even the President and the Judge could not maintain standing with the others unless they took their turn now and then working in the ditch. And so I say, work with your children, with common tools, out in the dirt. The scratches will heal and the dirt will wash off, but the sense of kinship with workers will stay.

Have a "You and I" club, with you and the children for members. Meet once a week to discuss schemes for earning money to buy what the children want. It is easier to go out and earn the money and give it to them to spend, but where do they come in? Read parts of this book aloud when outside information or suggestion is needed. Make a list of your children's occupations; consider whether they are the best ones. If you know any better ones than I have put into