Garbage, consisting chiefly of trimmings of meat and vegetables and the waste from the table, if stored in open buckets soon becomes offensive and is an ideal breeding place in warm weather for flies “that drink of cesspools, dine at privy vaults, eat sputum and are likely to be the most familiar guests at the dinner table, sampling every article of food upon which they walk, leaving in their tracks disease-producing germs which have adhered to their sticky feet where they have previously dined.”  Declare war upon the “fly who won’t wipe his feet” by keeping the garbage in a covered galvanized-iron pail and dispose of it before decomposition takes place.  Wash and dry the pail after emptying.  If the camp is located near a farm, give the garbage to the farmer.  It is the natural food of swine or poultry.  Where this is not possible, the garbage should be buried every day in the earth and covered with three or four inches of dirt.  Another and better plan, especially in a large camp, is the burning of the garbage and human excreta in an incinerator, such as the McCall.  This is the method of the United States Army.

Exercise caution in throwing aside tin cans.  The vegetable matter remaining in the cans soon decays and attracts flies.  Have a place where these cans may be buried or burned with other refuse each day.  Keep the ground surrounding the kitchen free from all kinds of garbage or refuse.

Do not throw dirty dish water promiscuously upon the ground.  Dig a trench and put the water in this trench.  Sprinkle chloride of lime or a disinfectant upon it each day.  In a permanent camp a waste water well should be dug and lined with stone.  The drain pipe should be laid from the kitchen to the well.  This water soon disappears in the soil and does not become a nuisance.  Make sure that the well is not in line with the water supply of the camp.  A little potash or some washing soda dissolved in the sink will help to keep the drain clean.

Place barrels in different parts of the camp for refuse and scraps.  A coat of whitewash or white paint will make them conspicuous.  In one camp the following suggestive bit of verse was painted on the waste barrels: 

Ravenous Barrel

I am all mouth and vacuum
  I never get enough,
So cram me full of fruit peels,
  Old papers, trash and stuff.

Epicurean Barrel

O, how sorry I feel for a boy
  Who litters clean places with trash,
Who throws away papers and fruit peels
  Which form my favorite hash.

Waste Barrels

These barrels should be set upon two strips of wood placed parallel.  This permits the air to pass beneath the barrel and keeps its bottom from decaying by contact with the ground.  The barrels should be emptied daily and the trash burned.

A dirty, carelessly kept, untidy camp will make discipline and order very difficult to attain and the influence will soon be noticed in the careless personal habits of the boys.  There is an educational and moral value in cleanliness which is second only to that of good health.