Acmanl of the American Sugar Maple. 1 83 



branches were cut by the firft fettlers for the fupport of 

 cattle during the winter, who throve greatly upon them. 

 The wood is extremely inflammable, and therefore makes 

 fine fire-wood. Its afhes afford a great quantity of pot-afh, 

 exceeded by few, or perhaps by none, of the trees that grow 

 in the woods of the United States. 



The acer faccharinum is not injured by tapping; on the 

 contrary, the oftener it is tapped, the more fyrup is obtained 

 from it. The effefts of a yearly difcharge of fap from the 

 tree in improving and increafing the fap, is demonftrated 

 from the fuperior excellence of thofe trees which have been 

 perforated in an hundred places by a fmall wood-pecker 

 which feeds upon the fap. The fap of fuch trees is much 

 fweeter to the tafte than that obtained from trees which 

 have not been previoufly wounded, and more fugar is 

 afterwards procured. In this laft particular it follows a law 

 of the animal ceconomy. It is well known, that when a 

 perfon has been once tapped, the procefs requires afterwards 

 to be more frequently repeated. A fingle tree has not only 

 furvived, but flourifhed after forty-two tappings in the fame 

 number of years. 



A tree of an ordinary fize yields, in a good feafon, from 

 twenty to thirty gallons of fap, from which are made from 

 five to fix pounds of fugar. To this there are fometimes 

 remarkable exceptions. Samuel Low, Efq. a juftice of peace 

 in Montgomery county, in the State of New York, informed 

 Arthur 1 Noble, Efq. that he had made twenty pounds and 

 one ounce of fugar from the 14th to the 23d of April, in the 

 year 1789, from a fingle tree that had been tapped^br feveral 

 fucceffive years before. The quantity obtained per diem 

 varies from five gallons to a pint, according to the variations 

 of the weather. The influence which this has in increafin<r 

 or lcflening the difcharge of the fap is very remarkable. I 

 have feen a journal of the effects of heat, cold, moifture, 

 drought, and thunder, upon the discharges from the fugar 

 tree; which difpofes me to believe there is fome foundation 

 N 4 in 



