SUGAR MAPLE. 201 



uails aro used, they may spoil the auger at some future tap. 

 ping. When the sugar season is over, the holes ought to be 

 closely plugged and the head cut off evenly with the bark 

 which soon grows over the wound. If thus carefully man- 

 aged, several may be made in a thrifty tree without any ap- 

 pearent injury to the tree. The barbarous, slovenly mode of 

 half girdling the trunk with an axe, soon destroys it. 



The sap is collected daily with buckets which are carried 

 on the neck by a milk man's yoke to the boilers ; or if 

 the quantity be great and remote from the sugar fires, by a 

 hogshead placed on a sled, with a large hole at the top covered 

 with a cloth strainer, or a tunnel similarly guarded, is inserted 

 in the bunghole. The primitive mode of arranging the 

 sugary, is with large receiving troughs placed near the fires, 

 capable of holding several hundred gallons of sap, and the 

 boiling kettles suspended over them on long poles supported 

 by crotches. The process of sugar making we shall give from 

 the statement of Mr. Woodworth of Watertown, N. Y. who 

 obtained the premium from the State agricultural society, for 

 the best sample of maple sugar exhibited at the annual fair 

 of 1844. The committe who awarded the premium say 

 " they have never seen so fine a sample, either in the perfec- 

 tion of the granulation or in the extent to which the refining 

 process has been carried ; the whole coloring matter is ex- 

 tracted, and the peculiar flavor of maple sugar is completely 

 eradicated, leaving the sugar fully equal to the double refined 

 cane loaf sugar to be found in our markets." 



The statement says : " in the first place I make my buck- 

 ets, tubs, and kettles, all perfectly clean. I boil the sap in a 

 potash kettle, set in an arch in such a manner that the edge 

 of the kettle is defended all around from the fire. I boil 

 through the day, taking care not to have any thing in the 

 kettle that will give color to the sap, and to keep it well 

 skimmed. At night I leave fire enough under the kettle to 

 boil the sap nearly or quite to syrup by the next morning. I 

 then take it out of the kettle and strain it through a flannel 

 cloth into a tub, if it. is sweet enough; if not, I put it in a 

 caldron kettle, which 1 have hung on a pole in such a manner 

 that I can swing it on and off the fire at pleasure, and boil it 

 till it is sweet enough, and then strain it into the tub and let 

 it stand till the next morning ; I then take it and the syrup 

 in the kettle and put it altogether in the caldron and sugar it 

 of I use to clarify, say 100 Ibs. of sugar, the whites of five 

 or six eggs, well beaten, about one quart of new milk and a 



