Account of the Ameri.an Sugar Maple. 185 



The fap ufually flows for fix weeks, varying according to 

 the temperature of the weather. The feafon for tapping is 

 in February, March, and April. During the remaining part 

 of the fpring months, as alio in the fummer, and in the be- 

 ginning of autumn, the maple tree yields a thin fap, but not 

 fit for the manufactory of fugar. 



Baron La Hontan gives the following account of the Tap 

 uf the fugar maple tree, when ufed as drink, and the manner 

 of obtaining it. The tree, fays he, yields a fap which has a 

 much pleafanter tafte than the beft lemonade or cherry 

 water, and is the wholefomeft: drink in the world. This 

 liquor is drawn by cutting the tree two inches deep in the 

 wood, the cut being made Hoping to the length of ten or 

 twelve inches ; at the lower end of this gafli, a knife is 

 thruft into the tree flopingly, fo that the water runs along 

 the cut or gafli, as through a gutter, pervades the knife, and 

 falls upon fome veflels placed underneath to receive it. 

 The gafli does no harm to the tree. Some trees will yield 

 five or fix bottles of this water in a day, and many inhabitants 

 of Canada might draw twenty hogfheads of.it in one day, if 

 they had a mind to notch all the maple trees upon then- 

 plantations ; but common things are flighted, and fcarce any 

 but children think of extracting this liquor from the trees. 



The mode of tapping is different, and is performed 

 with an axe or an auger. The latter is preferred, from ex- 

 perience of its advantage. It is introduced about three 

 quarters of an inch, and is afterwards deepened gradually to 

 the extent of two inches. A fpout is introduced about half 



The above experiments clearly demonftrate, that it is not from heat 

 and light alone that the lap rifes in the vine, or any other tree; for, if that 

 were the cafe, it would increafe as the heat increafed; it would be greateft 

 in the noon-day, and in the height of fummer, and lefs in fpring than in 

 autumn, whereas the reverfe is here (hewn to be the cafe. It muft there- 

 fore depend on the irritability of the fibres compofing the veflels, which 

 gets exhaufled by the flimulus of heat and light, and is accumulated by its 

 abfence. T. 



an 



