26 Trees, Stars, and Birds 



evaporator. This sirup may be converted into sugar 

 by driving off still more water. To test the boiled sap, 

 a small amount is stirred and cooled in a saucer. If it 

 granulates and adheres to the spoon and saucer, evapora- 

 tion has gone on long enough, and the hot sirup is 

 poured into molds to form cakes of sugar of the desired 

 shape. 



Maple sugar, like that made from sugar cane r is darker 

 than ordinary brown sugar, unless the impurities are 

 removed. To do this milk or beaten eggs are stirred 

 into the boiling maple sap. This causes most of the 

 coloring matter to rise to the top and mingle with 

 the froth, which is then skimmed off. Those who live 

 near sugar bushes enjoy making and eating maple wax. 

 This is formed by letting the hot sirup fall upon snow or 

 ice. 



The sugar made by the leaves of the trees. The 

 leaves are the food-making organs- of a plant, and the 

 sugar that is obtained from maple sap in the spring was 

 made the summer before by the leaves .of the tree. As 

 the sugar is manufactured it passes down from the 

 leaves into the trunk and roots of the tree, and is stored 

 in the living cells of these parts in the form of starch. 

 Then when food is needed in the spring to enable the 

 buds to grow and expand into blossoms and leaves, 

 and to produce the seeds, the starch is changed back to 

 sugar, which is dissolved out of the storage cells and 

 carried upward in the sap. 



i The sugar that is manufactured by the leaves is made 

 from water, which is absorbed by the roots and passed 

 up through the vessels of the wood, and from carbon 



