Doomsday DefenseSection
Rebuilding Civilization
The long game: growing food, raising animals, keeping bees, and the crafts (smithing, tanning, soap) that rebuild a community.
- Gardening & Farming
- Livestock & Poultry
- Beekeeping
- Blacksmithing & Metalwork
- Traditional Crafts
- Building & Construction
In the library
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Building with Logs
The Forest Service's 1945 guide to log construction: choosing and peeling logs, foundations, corner notches, roofs, fireplaces and finishing.
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Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making
W. Hamilton Gibson's illustrated 1881 guide to camp shelters, log huts, canoes, and building and setting traps, snares and deadfalls.
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Canning, Freezing, Storing Garden Produce
USDA's guide to preserving a harvest: canning, freezing, drying, pickling, jams, root-cellar storage and community canneries (1977).
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Forge Work
A 1912 manual-training course in blacksmithing: forge tools, drawing, upsetting and welding, tempering tool steel, and making tools.
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Home Canning of Fruits and Vegetables
USDA bulletin on choosing the right canner for each food and canning fruits, tomatoes, pickles and vegetables at home (1965).
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Home Canning of Meat and Poultry
USDA bulletin on pressure-canning meat, poultry, sausage, stew and soup stock at home, with spoilage checks (1966, revised 1972).
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Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee
The 1853 book that introduced the movable-frame hive still used today, with the natural history and management of honeybees.
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Shelters, Shacks and Shanties
Dan Beard's illustrated 1914 guide to building shelters with just a hatchet or an axe, from lean-tos and bark huts to log cabins.
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Soap-Making Manual
A 1922 chemist's handbook on soap: fats and oils, lye, the boiling process, and testing and controlling the product.
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War Gardens
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's head gardener on growing food in back yards and vacant lots during the First World War (1918).