VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR 177 



house have come many in the methods of getting 

 the sap from the trees. The pioneer method was 

 to " box " them. This meant cutting a receptacle 

 in the tree itself large enough to hold a pint or so 

 of the liquid which ran into it. Boxing, year after 

 year, was destructive to the trees which, neverthe- 

 less, survived a vast amount of it. It is probable 

 that boxing has not been carried on in the Ver- 

 mont groves for more than fifty years, yet there 

 are trees standing to-day which show marks of 

 the old-time method. On what was known once 

 as the Kathan farm, just west of the Connecticut 

 River in Dummerston, still stand a few trees of 

 what is believed to be the first grove in the State 

 from which white men made maple sugar in any 

 quantity. Thirty-three of these veterans were 

 there in 1874, but now only nine remain. They 

 are gigantic trees, free of limbs to a great height 

 and one at least sixteen feet in circumference. At 

 the base can be seen the knotted, uneven growth 

 covering the scars of nearly seventy years of 

 " boxing." After the boxing method came the 

 tapping iron, almost as hard on the trees. A slant- 

 ing kerf, an inch deep and four inches long, was 



