I 313 1 



accuftomed to weights or meafurcs, differed very 

 materially in their accounts, both as to the quantity 

 of fap, and the fugar it yielded, efpecially as the fap 

 runs much more freely and in greater quantities 

 feme fcafons than in others. The refult of my fe- 

 veral enquiries both in thofe and other parts of the 

 country, led me to conclude, that trees' from 18 

 to 30 inches diameter, which were the fizes gene- 

 rally tapped, upon the average yielded about forty 

 gallons of fap, and this quantity about five pounds of 

 fugar i the fugar trees frequently growing on their 

 bed lands, when they wanted the ground cleared, 

 made the farmers indifferent about preferving them, 

 and the common mode of tapping was by cutting a 

 notch in the tree with an ax, which was enlarged 

 by a frefh cut every year; the fap was colledled in 

 wood troughs made on the fpot from folid logs 

 hollowed out, and the fap boiled down in the wood 

 in their common pots and kettles, handy to where 

 it was colleded. Where the trees were of value, 

 and intended to be preferved, fome people tapped 

 them by boring a hole with an auger or gimbletj 

 this was requifite to be done afrefh every year, or 

 the hole pared larger. The whole of the fap is col- 

 lefted in fix or eight weeks, generally beginning to 

 run early in February, and to ceafc by the laft of 

 March or early in April: this bcipg a feafon of the 



year 



