50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



driven lightly into the bark of the tree, just sufficient to sustain their weight, 

 thus avoiding the necessity of a second use of the gouge, and with mucli less 

 injury to the tree. Tliis manner of tapping is very common, and when skill- 

 fully performed, is attended with but little injury to the tree. Great care is, 

 however, necessary to avoid starting off the bark ; to this end the gouge 

 should be very thin, and the two incisions should be several inches apart. 

 This, too, is a somewhat wasteful way, for notwithstanding the utmost care 

 in tapping, much sap will run to waste. 



Another method is by boring the tree'with an auger or bit, and inserting a 

 tube epout. An auger bit is better than a T-handled auger, for witli the bit 

 the work can be more expeditiously performed. A hole of half an inch, or 

 from that to three- fourths of an inch in diameter, is a proper size ; and one 

 inch deep in depth at first tapping, to be further deepened as the season ad- 

 vances. The tube spouts are made from elder or sumach wood, the pith being 

 forced out to form a channel for the sap. They are also made of various 

 kinds of soft wood, as pine, csdar or bass, by boring three or four inches at 

 one end of the piece with a gimblet, then rounding the end to fit the hole 

 made by the bit in the tree ; the other end of the piece is shaved down to the 

 gimblet hole, then a crease or channel is made in the piece thus shaved, to 

 lead the sap to the receiving vessel. A better style of tube spout is made 

 thus : take a block of wood about one and one-quarter inches square and six 

 inches long, bure it lengthwise through the center with a quarter inch bit ; 

 this is most expeditiously done by fitting the bit into a lathe, and where 

 several hundreds or thousands are to be made, economy in time must be con- 

 sulted — then place the block, thus bored, into the lathe and round it down to 

 about one inch, sharpening one end down to half an inch or less. Thus we 

 have a neat, handy spout, perfectly sharpened and fitted to any hole from half 

 an inch to an inch in diameter. The auger, or tube tapping is, all things 

 considered, to be preferred to the other methods described ; the injury to the 

 tree, to say the least, is not greater than in those ; the closely fitting tube 

 spout saves all the sap; the wound from which the sap flows, being in a 

 measure protected from the sun and winds by the spout, does not so soon dry 

 up; and when from drying tlie flow diminishes, the hole may be deepened 

 without additional external injury to the tree. Lastly, it is simple, and 

 therefore may be done by everybody having a thimble full of ingenuity. 



In any mode of tapping, great care should be exercised to avoid injury to 

 the tree. Boring too deep is an unnecessary damage ; one blow too much in 

 driving the tube spout, an error in setting the gouge, or a false stroke of the 

 axe may, in a moment, cleave off a patch of bark which will require several 

 years to heal. In removing the outer bark or ross to secure a smooth surface 

 where the tapping is to be done, care must be used not to cut too closely, for 

 if the liber, or inner bark is exposed to the burning rays of the sun, which 

 soon succeed to the sugar season, the tender bark will become parched, crack 

 open, and cleave from the tree, leaving a bad scar. 



The depth and size of the wound necessary to be made upon the tree in 

 order to secure the greatest flow of sap are debated questions. The gouge- 

 tappers claim that one or two grains of wood severed will produce as much 

 sap as if the wound were three inches deep ; while the auger-tappers hold 

 that the quantity of s^ip will be in proportion to the depth of the wound ; and 

 at tlie same time the axe-tappers insist that the larger the external wound the 

 greater the yield. It is probable that each is right in part, and each in part 

 wrong. The auger tappers have strengthened their position by actual experi- 

 ment in at least one instance. The Burlington, Vt., Agricultural Society, by 

 a committee of three appointed for the purpose, and by experiments continued 

 through two years, (1850 and 1851,) and upon many trees, report that a half 

 inch hole will yield as much sap as one of any larger size up to one and one- 

 half inches in diameter ; and the flow is, in all cases, in proportion to the 

 tlepth. 



