as the one of drilling. For these reasons it seems best not to put your
labor into the inferior cloth.

Before you use the tent, or expose to the weather any thing made of
cotton cloth, you should wash it thoroughly in strong soap-suds, and
then soak it in strong brine; this takes the sizing and oil out of the
cloth, and if repeated from year to year will prevent mildew, which soon
spoils the cloth. There are mixtures that are said to be better still,
but a tent-maker assures me that the yearly washing is better than any
thing applied only once. Some fishermen preserve their sails by soaking
them in a solution of lime and water considerably thinner than
whitewash. Others soak them in a tanner's vat; but the leather-like
color imparted is not pleasing to the eye. Weak lime-water they say does
not injure cotton; but it ruins rope and leather, and some complain that
it rots the thread.

It will save strain upon any tent, to stay it in windy weather with
ropes running from the iron pins of the upright poles (which should
project through the ridgepole and top of the tent) to the ground in
front and rear of the tent. A still better way is to run four ropes from
the top--two from each pole-pin--down to the ground near the tent-pins
of the four corner guy-lines. The two stays from the rear pole should
run toward the front of the tent; and the two front stays toward the
rear, crossing the other two. The tent is then stayed against a wind
from any quarter, and the stays and guy-lines are all together on the
sides of the tent.

Loosen the stays and guy-lines a little at night or when rain is
approaching, so as to prevent them from straining the tent by shrinking.