Gathering Resources - The Ultimate Player's Guide to Minecraft - page 57

Tip: Making Use of Bones
The morning sun burns up skeletons, leaving behind bones that you can craft into
bone meal. Bone meal acts as a fertilizer, helping your crops grow faster. You can
also use bone to tame wolves, providing you with an extra level of protection.
Chapter 7 , “ Taming Mobs ,” has a lot more information on breeding and taming
Minecraft's many friendly creatures.
Startearly,headingoutwithastoneswordattheready,justincase.Ifyouarelowonwood,
swing an axe at a few nearby trees.
Move carefully so you don't lose your bearings. The sun rises in the east and sets in the
west, and the clouds always travel from east to west, so you can always at least get your
bearings.Followingacompasscardinalpoint(north,south,east,orwest)usingthesunand
clouds as a reference can lead you away and reasonably accurately back home again.
Tip: Finding Your Way
It's easy to become lost in Minecraft. Run helter-skelter from your base, chase a
herd of livestock, discover a natural cave system, or take a shot across the sea like
thatfamedNorseman,LeifEriksson.It'sallpartoftheMinecraftcharm.Butdon't
become Columbus in the process.
A few quick tips:
When you are able, craft a compass. It takes some redstone and iron, and both are
relatively easy to obtain with some assiduous mining. The only problem with a
compass is that it always points to your original world spawn point. Think of that
point as the magnetic north pole—it's not a GPS. Sleeping in a bed resets your
spawn point but not your compass, so this method falls out of date as soon as you
move to new dwellings and update your spawn point.
A compass is actually more useful when crafted into a map, see Chapter 10 , “ En-
chanting, Anvils, and Brewing ” page 195 .
Don't forget that you can always use the built-in GPS available through the debug
screen (mentioned under the “ Introducing the HUD ” section earlier in this
chapter).