The History of Maple Sugar 207 



of less importance. All of these have sweet sap, 

 but only that of the hard maple contains enough 

 sugar to be of any practical value. So the trees 

 which the Indians selected for his use were large, 

 full-crowned sugar maples, trees that had been 

 growing for many years and were full of sap. 



On the sunny side of each tree he made a deep, 

 slanting cut with his hatchet or tomahawk, 

 and into the lower end of this he drove a curved 

 piece of bark or a hollow reed. This carried the 

 slowly running sap to a small dish of clay or birch 

 bark placed on a stone at the foot of the tree. 

 As the dishes became full, the sap was emptied 

 into large troughs of elm bark, troughs which 

 were sometimes large enough to hold fifty or a 

 hundred gallons of this sweet stuff. 



The sap was changed to sirup, then to sugar, 

 in one of two ways. Sometimes it was made 

 thicker and sweeter by being allowed to freeze 

 in shallow bark vessels. The ice,, as it formed on 

 the surface, was thrown out, until enough water 

 had been removed to give a thick sirup, or a 

 sirup which would crystallize into sugar. This 

 was a slow process and its employment depended 

 entirely upon the condition of the weather. A 



