Boyles - How to Catch a Pig

For Foretelling the Weather Throughout All the Lunations of Each YearForever

Completely Accurate Methods for Forecasting Weather in Rural Areas

Appendices:

Miscellaneous Outdoor Amusements

Cabins and How to Make Them

Wilderness Skills & Outdoor Arts
Recovered from Obscure Texts & Forgotten
Volumes of Advice & Information
for Modern Men & Boys,
with a Special Emphasis on the
Salubrious Effects of Life
as It Is Lived in Nature

Clever & Entertaining Instruction from One End of the Century to the Other

How to Catch a Pig, Build a Fly-Fishing Rod, Negotiate with Ducks & 1,000 Other Useful and Interesting Facts

I n addition to the authors of the books listed here, who supplied most of the contents of Lost Lore of a Mans Life , Im also indebted to my cousin, Marvin, who let me use his extra house in town so Id have someplace out of the rain to sit while I typed all this up. In addition, Deb, Carol, Kim, and all the smart and scenic women who work next door to Rexs pitched in to get this manuscript ready before the sheriff showed up. Im also extremely grateful to Mauro DiPreta and Jennifer Griffin at HarperCollins. Jennifer was a guiding spirit of both Mans Life books. I owed her a thanks in the previous book, but I forgot. So here.

Of these authors, Im most indebted to the redoubtable Buzzacott, Francis Buzzacott, Col. Francis Buzzacott. He is by far the most relied-upon source for the information in this collection. Theres a reason for that. Buzzacott is a man before my own heart; his outdoor books were not only extremely comprehensive, but were also unabashedly self-promoting. I certainly have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, where Buzzacotts editorial advertisements appeared, I simply substituted editorial advertisements of my own. I like to think Buzzacott would be happy knowing hes still out there promoting somebody .

Heres a modest bibliography of books recycled between these covers:

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them , Rolfe Cobleigh, New York, Orange Judd Company, 1913. By the way, I discovered after this manuscript was complete that this excellent compendium has just been reissued by Lyons & Burford.

Farm Blacksmithing , J.M. Drew, 2nd Ed., St. Paul, Minnesota, Webb Publishing Company, 1915

The Complete American and Canadian Sportsmans Encyclopedia of Valuable Instruction , Francis H. Buzzacott, Chicago, Press of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 1905

The Book of Woodcraft , Ernest Thompson Seton, Garden City, New York, Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1912

The Home Library of Entertainment, Instruction and Amusement , Thomas Sheppard Meek, St. Louis, Mo., Thompson Publishing Co., 1902

The Boy Mechanic (Books One, Two and Three), Popular Mechanics Co., Chicago, Popular Mechanics Co. Publishers, Copyrighted 19131917 by H.H. Windsor

The Boy Scouts Own Book , edited by Franklin K. Mathiews, New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1915

The Infantry Soldiers Hand Book , Major William H. Waldron, New York, George U. Harvey, Inc., 1917

Scouting , National Headquarters Boy Scouts of America, New York, 1919

This book was compiled at the commencement of William Jefferson Clintons second term as President of the United States. In the spirit of these times, therefore, let me conclude with this obligatory statement:

In a book full of so much information, almost all of which has been gleaned from other sources, Im pleased to say that I think I have been successful in weeding out errors and correcting mistakes. Where misinformation remains, however, Im even more pleased to say the fault lies with the original authors: I didnt know about it, but if I had known about it, I wouldnt have permitted it. And above all, I had nothing personally to do with it.

Denis

A lthough I pocketed the money, almost every single one of the words in this book were written by somebody other than me. That in itself would make this book one of my own personal favorites. But theres more here: This book is made up of the best and most useful parts of many other books, all of which are also favorites of mine. Despite their undeserved obscurity, I felt these books also contained information that, if not exactly lost , had certainly been misplaced in our modern rush to make everythingincluding an overnight walk in the woodsan exercise in cutting edge technology. Instead of offering fuzzy advice of a radically alternative nature, these books all scream Use common sense! at top volume.

So think of this book as a kind of small attic filled with lots of old stuff thats still pretty good, all things considered. Maybe it will scare some guys to find out that some jobs are only done right one way. I mean, a man walks through the world today one foot in front of the other, much as he did a hundred years ago. The difference is that now the very act of walking is somehow suspect.

The focus in this book is on a mans life as its lived outdoors, since, in my opinion, outdoors is the best place to see life unadorned. Outdoors is also a pretty exotic place for many modern men. From my own limited personal experience, I know there are TV producers and magazine editors in New York City, intimidating men on their own turf, who are terrified of the outdoorsespecially if the outdoors is also out of town . For them, this book will constitute a kind of exotic travelogue. For the rest of us, it will contain familiar reassurances that what we thought was the right thing to do really was the right thing to do, after all.

Once again, my friend Gregg Stebben went through a huge pile of books, many of which were delivered to him by Karen Kriberney and by other librarians who areor at least werefriends of hers. Now they are also friends of mine. There are additional acknowledgments elsewhere in this book.

This book is designed to fit neatly in your backpack or jacket pocket. It also snugs nicely on a shelf next to its big-brother book, A Mans Life: The Complete Instructions . It finds a resonance in the pages of Mens Health magazine, and at the encyclopedic Mans Life website located at http://www.manslife.com in the great wilderness of the World Wide Web. There is also the quarterly newspaper of A Mans Life , and, if you will write to the address below, I will always be happy to send you information about our fine stuff.