170 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. 



it comes raw and can be cooked in the gloAving embers, 

 held on the point of a sharpened stick. How generous 

 the hens are in their supply of eggs at sugaring time ! 

 Large quantities always find their way to the woods. 

 The sugar camp is better than a water-cure for a man 

 fretting with dj^spepsia. Sometimes there are several 

 days between the runs, in which the sap will not start 

 at all — the weather being too hot or too cold. Freez- 

 ing nights and sunshiny days are favorable conditions 

 for its free circulation in the trees. Burroughs says : 

 "A day that Avill bring the bees out of the hive will 

 bring the sap out of maple trees. It is the fruit of the 

 equal marriage of the sun and frost." ISTo class of 

 people note the changes of the weather more closely, 

 watching the fulfillment of all signs, than the sugar 

 makers. When the piping of the frogs is heard in low 

 places, three more sap runs are predicted, as it is 

 believed the frogs will be frozen in three times after 

 their first appearance. Sugar made after the buds 

 begin to start is salvy and will not cake w^ell, and later, 

 it will not granulate or crystallize at all, but is stringy 

 and has a strong, disagreeable flavor, very different 

 from the sparkling cakes made when the trees were 

 first tapped : this must be nature's hint that the sw^eet 

 blood of the tree is needed for other uses ; at least, it is 

 a hint that the sugar season is over. 



Other urgent work usually compels the sugar makers 

 to leave the bush immediately after the last "run" 

 until the first hurry of fence and garden making is 

 over, when all hands return to the woods to gather, 



