FINE ARTS OF A COUNTRY HOME 235 



to replace them when their turn should come to kill 

 a fatted calf. 



Making sugar was also a domestic affair. Nearly 

 everyone had his own maple bush or grove. Fifty 

 trees, at four pounds each, would make sugar enough 

 for a large family. The whole affair was a romance 

 from the tapping of the trees to the final " sugar- 

 ing-off." In these days no one knows of these things, 

 but I advise you to buy a gallon of maple syrup and 

 have a " sugaring-off " before you die. That and 

 samp will make life seem a deal longer and worth 

 the while. Get some old farmer to show you the way 

 it was done. 



" Samp ! " Why that was our ambrosia, fit for 

 the gods who dwell in the country a-nd plant gar- 

 dens. It was made of the selectest ears of corn, 

 dried by the stove, shelled by the owner, ground by 

 itself, so as not to be mixed in the miller's hopper with 

 all sorts of corn, and then with the finer meal sifted 

 out it was boiled all day in an iron pot on the back 

 of the stove. It was stirred by everyone who passed 

 near the stove and after twelve hours cooking it 

 was samp. Alas, the art is lost. Wendell Phillips 

 wrote about the lost arts of Egypt, but we also have 

 lost arts in America. 



Bee-keeping supplemented sugar making, but we 

 have that yet, bless the Lord ! No one has been able 

 to make honey like the bees, although there have 

 been some attempts I believe. 



We had no creameries in those days, but each 



