THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 241 



Last winter we talked the matter up in the Farmers 

 Club. Men in whose judgment we had confidence said 

 the thing would pay. Mr. Spooner, who is ready for 

 every good word and work, said there was no good reason 

 why we should not make our own sweetening at home ; 

 that the farmers in the town paid out twenty thousand 

 dollars every year for this article, and they might just as 

 well keep that amount in their own pockets. Deacon 

 Smith read extracts from the agricultural papers, showing 

 what they were doing out West, raising two and three 

 hundred gallons of syrup to the acre, and clearing over a 

 hundred dollars above working expenses. He said the 

 crop last year was worth several millions of dollars, and 

 that the business was increasing rapidly wherever they 

 had learned to make the syrup. 



Seth Twiggs said they had started a mill at Smithtown, 

 and it worked well. He brought along several bottles of 

 the syrup made at the mill, and to convince the skeptical, 

 sent it around for trial. It was found that it made good 

 gingerbread, it sweetened coffee, and filled the place of 

 molasses completely. After a fair trial, and several weeks 

 talking, in which every man made sure that the syrup 

 would not bite, we got the Club up to the question 

 &quot; Shall Hookertown have a sugar mill ?&quot; This was the 

 name the thing seemed to take of itself, though I suppose 

 they will make nothing but syrup at present. It was 

 agreed that the syrup was the thing we all wanted, and 

 we were all ready to go into it if the thing could be made 

 to pay. Two men agreed to build the mill, and put into 

 it every thing necessary to grind the cane and boil the 

 syrup, if they could have cane enough to make it an 

 object. They wanted three hundred acres pledged. 

 This, with what they raised themselves, they thought 

 would make it a safe enterprise. 



To get the cane pledged in a community of small farm 

 ers, many of them not having more than ten acres under 



