VERMONT AGRICULTURAL, REPORT. 26 



in its sides, the marks of which are now covered by 8 or lO 

 inches of sohd wood; how the sap was boiled in potash kettles 

 in the primeval forest; how the bear and catamount prowled 

 around the sugar camp; how the children of 1805 liked "sugar 

 on snow" just as well as the children of 1905 ; how ashes and 

 firebrands falling in the boiling sap colored the sugar until it 

 rivaled the kettles themselves in blackness. These facts are 

 familiar to all Vermonters. 



But with wonderful vitality the tree survived this axe-tap- 

 ping, and then came a time of tapping with augers. My block 

 shows where it was tapped repeatedly with an inch and a quarter 

 auger. (I have in my collection slabs from neigboring sugar 

 orchards showing where trees have been tapped twice or more 

 with a two inch auger, and to a depth of four inches). 



Then there are marks showing a time later on when a taper- 

 ing instrument was used, I think what was called a pod-auger. 



The foregoing scars covered a space of fifty or sixty years, 

 and then came a time when it was concluded tliat a smaller bore 

 would produce as much sap and with less injury to the tree. 



From a ^ inch bit, the size was gradually reduced in twenty- 

 five years to the 7-16 or ^ inch style of tapping bit of today; 

 and in the past forty years great strides have been made in the 

 art of sugar-making, as well as in preserving the sugar maple 

 tree. 



About 1800, just before and shortly after, when the farms 

 of Central Vermont were being cleared, thousands of these rock 

 maple trees were cut and burned for the potash they contained; 

 but thanks to the foresight of our forefathers, on nearly every 

 farm some of the places where were the largest and best growths 

 of maples, a section of timber would be reserved for a sugar 

 orchard, and it is among, and only among, these old growths 

 that we find the rock maple in all its primeval glory. 



These rank, I think, as the largest botanical specimens in 

 the State, and they are numerous and cover a large area. 



Many are 10 and 11 feet in circumference at the base, 

 some 12 and 13. These old growth maples tower above all other 

 hard woods. Dr. Holmes says, "There is nothing holds its 

 youth, so far as I know, but a tree and truth." And how many 

 springs and summers this old tree had put forth its buds and 

 leaves in all the freshness of youth and looked down on a chang- 

 ing world! 



"Tittle of all we value here, wakes on the morn of its hund- 

 redth year," — less on the morn of its two hundredth year. But 

 this old maple tree stood on, hacked and scarred by man, and 

 made to pay tribute year by year, yet, mighty still. 



