For such an excursion as you propose I would recommend you to carry as food for one for six days:

  2 or 3 lbs. of boiled corned beef (I and my companions have preferred it to tongue).

  2 lbs. of sugar.

  ¼ lb. of tea (or ½ lb. of coffee).

  2 lbs. of hard bread, and a half a large loaf of home-made bread, (ready buttered if you like it), consuming the last first; or 4½ lbs. of hard bread alone.

  Also a little moist and rich plum cake, of which you can take a pinch from time to time.

  2 or 3 lemons will not come amiss to flavor poor water with.

  If you multiply this amount by 8, the number of your party, subtract from 5 to 10 per cent.

  Carry these different articles in separate cotton or linen bags labelled, and a small portion of the sugar in a box by itself for immediate use. (The same of salt, if you expect to get game or fish.)

  As for clothing and other articles, I will state exactly what I should take in such a case (besides what I wore and what were already in my pockets), my clothes and shoes being old, but thick and stout.

  1 shirt.

  1 pair socks.

  2 pocket-handkerchiefs.

  1 thick waist-coat.

  6 bosoms (or dickies).

  Towel and soap.

  Pins, needles, and thread.

  A blanket.

  A thick night cap (unless your day cap is soft and close fitting.)

  A map of the route, and a compass.

  (Such other articles as your peculiar taste and pursuits require.)

  A hatchet, (for a party of half a dozen a light but long handled axe), for you will wish to make a great fire, however warm, and to cut large logs.

  Paper and stamps.

  Jack knife.

  Matches; some of these in a water-tight vial in your vest pocket.

  A fish line and hooks, a piece of salt pork for bait, and a little salt always in your pocket, so as to be armed in case you should be lost in the woods.

  Wastepaper and twine.

  An iron spoon and a pint tin dipper for each man, in which last it will be well to insert a wire handle, whose curve will coincide with that of the dipper’s edge, and then you can use it as a kettle, if you like, and not put out the fire.

  A four quart tin pail will serve very well for your common kettle.

  An umbrella.

  For shelter, either a tent or a strong sheet large enough to cover all. If a sheet, the tent will be built shed-fashion, open to the fair weather side; two saplings, either as they stand or else stuck in the ground, serving for main posts, a third being placed horizontally in the forks of these, 6 or 7 feet from the ground, and two or three others slanted backward from it. This makes the frame on which to stretch your sheet, which must come quite down to the ground on the sides and the back.

  You will lie, of course, on the usual twigged bed, with your feet to the front.