all this is neither here nor there. The point I wish to
make is, keep your duffle safe to float and your paddle and canoe
sufficiently in hand to always hold your breathing works above water
level. So shall your children look confidently for your safe return,
while the "Accidentals" arise and call you a good investment.

There is only one objection to the clinker-built canoe that occurs to
me as at all plausible. This is, that the ridge-like projections of her
clinker laps offer resistance to the water and retard her speed.
Theoretically, this is correct. Practically, it is not proven. Her
streaks are so nearly on her water line that the resistance, if any,
must be infinitesimal. It is possible, however, that this element might
lessen her speed one or two minutes in a mile race. I am not racing,
but taking leisurely recreation. I can wait two or three minutes as
well as not. Three or four knots an hour will take me through to the
last carry quite as soon as I care to make the landing.

A few words of explanation and advice may not be out of place. I have
used the words "boughs" and "browse" quite frequently. I am sorry they
are not more in use. The first settlers in the unbroken forest knew how
to diagnose a tree. They came to the "Holland Purchase" from the
Eastern States, with their families, in a covered wagon, drawn by a
yoke of oxen, and the favorite cow patiently leading behind. They could
not start until the ground was settled, some time in May, and nothing
could be done in late summer, save to erect a log cabin and clear a few
acres for the next season. To this end the oxen were indispensable and
a cow was of first necessity, where there were children. And cows and
oxen must have hay. But there was not a lot of hay in the country. A
few hundred pounds of coarse wild grass was gleaned from the margins of
streams and small marshes; but the main reliance was "browse." Through
the warm months the cattle could take care of themselves; but, when
winter settled down in earnest, a large part of the settler's work
consisted in providing browse for his cattle. First and best was the
basswood (linden): then came maple, beech, birch and hemlock. Some of
the trees would be nearly three feet in diameter, and when felled, much
of the browse would be twenty feet above the reach of cattle, on the
ends of huge limbs. Then the boughs were lopped off and the cattle
could get at the browse. The settlers divided the tree into log, li