Part 27

Before the Scouts start for camp they should be assembled and inspected in a group by a nurse, or some other person competent to detect body and head lice. No Scout should be allowed to come to camp infested with vermin, and yet this happens repeatedly unless definite precautions are taken. As a rule this cannot be left to the examining physician. If this examination is made as early as a week ahead of the time to start for camp the children's heads can be cleansed.

To cleanse the head from lice, rub the scalp and saturate the hair with kerosene. Tie the head up in a thick, clean cloth held in place with safety pins. Leave the bandage on over night. After removing the bandage it should be plunged at once into hot soap suds, and thoroughly washed. Wash the scalp and hair with castile or ivory soap, rinsing thoroughly. Dry with clean towels. Combs and brushes should be thoroughly cleansed before using. It may be necessary to repeat this process once.

The ideal should be held before each Scout of having her health record while in camp a perfect one. Should any unforeseen trouble arise, however, she must report at once to the nurse or Director.

Whenever possible, sleep with tent sides and flaps up; never with the tent closed except in case of a severe storm.

Indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, bruises, blisters, strains and sprains, insect bites, sunburn and ivy poisoning are some of the common camp ailments that have to be dealt with.

Observing the Scout Health requirements as discussed in the Handbook, "Scouting for Girls," helps very much in establishing a healthy Scout camp and keeping out of it conditions which are often due to carelessness.

XII

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE

1. PROVISIONING

To buy in large quantities at wholesale and pay for the order within ten days is economy. To ship by boat and not by rail, when possible, also saves money. To have a dry, well ventilated store room and an ice room is to save still more. It is possible and feasible to order before camp opens, the necessary dry groceries and canned goods to be used in a camp of 150 during a period of four to five weeks, and to care for same in a comparatively small space.

The amounts needed can be computed from the amounts necessary for a family of four or six. In fact, the knowledge necessary to provide properly for a family under ordinary circumstances is of the greatest help in providing for a camp be it large or small. There are many good cook books which specify quantities for given numbers of people; knowing these, the numbers of campers to be fed per day, the amounts in which various kinds of dry provisions are sold at wholesale, gives one the key to the situation. By making out roughly a week's menus, a close estimate can be made.

Cereals, flours and meals can be bought by the sack and range in weight from 50 to 100 pounds. Sugar can be bought by the bag or barrel, the latter being better because it is cleaner. Navvy beans, to be used for baking, are sold in bags, 150 or 160 pounds in a bag. Baking powder is bought in 5-lb. tins. Cocoa is bought in 25-lb. drums. Macaroni comes in 22-lb. boxes. Peanut butter in 10-lb. pails. Crisco comes in 6-lb. cans; molasses in No. 10 tins, 6 tins in a case; tomatoes in No. 10 tins, 6 in a case; apple butter in 30-lb. pails; cod fish in 20-lb. boxes; soap, 1 case of 100 bars; butter in 63-lb. tubs; eggs in a case of 30 dozen; prunes, apricots, peaches in 25-lb. boxes; raisins in 25-lb. boxes; cheese, 30 lbs. (whole cheese); split peas in 60-lb. bag; vanilla in pint or quart bottles; salt, 25-lb. bag; corn starch, 1 package of 2 dozen boxes; soda, cinnamon, nut meg, ginger, pepper and mustard to be bought in small quantities as needed.

Fresh milk, if obtained from a dairy, is delivered in 40-qt. cans. A quart and a cup per person per day is a good allowance for drinking and cooking purposes. If fresh milk is not obtainable, or can be had only in small quantities, a good brand of evaporated milk should be kept on hand.

Fresh vegetables are bought either by the pound, bunch, quart, peck or bushel. In so far as is possible they should be cooked the day they are delivered. If, however, it is necessary to buy vegetables at one time for two or three days' supply, use first such things as spinach, peas, beans and corn, for cabbages, carrots, beets, tomatoes and squash are more easily kept and are not so impaired in flavor by keeping.

If fresh meat or chicken is to be served it should be cooked the day it is delivered, or kept on ice until such time as it will be needed. Fresh fish should be handled with great care and not allowed to remain off the ice for any length of time. There are so many wholesome substitutes for meat that it seems entirely unnecessary for campers to have meat more than once or at most twice a week. In the summer time, it is very heating, and also the meat which is obtainable in small communities is very often not the best quality, to say nothing of being very expensive. An occasional pot roast of the top of the round, or a roast of lamb, or a piece of corned beef can be used. Fresh fish when obtainable and well cooked is always most acceptable.

Canned meat and canned fish are not recommended.

Care of Provisions

All bags of cereal, meals or flour should be placed in covered barrels, boxes or tubs stood on a platform raised from the floor. Boxes of dried foods such as fruit, cod fish and so forth should be stacked, each kind in a pile and placed on the platform. All tinned goods should be taken out of their cases and laid on shelves. Butter, crisco, eggs, peanut butter, apple butter, and so forth, should be kept in the ice house. Cheese should be wrapped in cheese cloth wrung out in vinegar and kept in a box on a shelf in the store room, not in the ice box.

The handling of fresh milk is something which should be done with great care. After opening a large can, the milk should be stirred with a long ladle which reaches to the bottom of the can. The quantity of milk needed should be taken out and put in a pitcher. For dipping out the milk use a dipper which has been sterilized by placing it in boiling water and cooled by allowing cold water to run over it. This dipper should not be used for any other purpose than taking milk from the large can and when not in use can hang in the ice room. Milk cans should always be kept covered and no milk which has once been taken out of a can should ever be poured back into it. What is left from the table should be put in a pitcher and stood in the ice house to be used for cooking. Milk which is handled in this way and which comes from a first class dairy will keep sweet for three days. It is not essential to keep fresh vegetables in an ice house. If the tops are cut off, vegetables can be kept in baskets in the store room. Under no circumstances should anything hot or even warm be put into the ice box, as the steam which arises from the combination of cold and heat will decompose food very quickly, or cause it to sour. Anything that is hot and needs to be cooled before placing in the ice box should be covered with cheese cloth kept for the purpose and stood on the store room shelves.

Bread, if bought from a bakery, can be kept in a barrel or on shelves and covered with cheese cloth. The sandwich loaves are recommended as they cut to better advantage in the bread cutter, and are more economical in the long run. These loaves weigh about three pounds apiece and cut into from 40 to 45 slices.

Ice cream salt should not be kept in the store room, but in a half-barrel or tub outside of the kitchen door. Salt causes dampness, which is not desirable. The bag of table salt should stand in a tub or box of some kind. Fruit, especially tomatoes and peaches, should be watched closely as little flies are apt to collect on them.

It is most essential that the store room be swept, the shelves brushed, and everything not of use removed from it every morning. This is true with the care of an ice box or room. Not a day should pass that it is not thoroughly inspected and all that is not usable removed from it, and the room left in a perfectly clean, wholesome condition. The ice compartment should be washed out two or three times a week before the fresh ice is put into the box.

Do not buy more perishable food than can be properly taken care of and used within a day or two. Watch it closely, pick it over each day and throw out any part which shows signs of decay.

Do not neglect to replenish the larder before supplies are out, as transportation is slow. Do not forget that large quantities take much more time to cook than small quantities. Many times meals are not served on time for this reason.

Make a point of weighing, measuring and apportioning. It is economy to do so.

Nail a card in the kitchen on which is given the quantities of those things which are used constantly and the number of people each quantity will supply: sugar, butter, bread, cereal, cocoa, dried fruit.

Buy only what is needed and can be properly stored. The second grade of many foods is as good as the first in taste, and as nourishing. It costs less, and many times simply because it is not perfect in size or uniformity.

To buy in bulk is less expensive than to purchase boxed or tinned goods. This rule for campers pertains particularly to cereals, crackers, meals, flours, sugar, cocoa, raisins, etc.