202 PRACTICAL FORESTRY 
drugs of various kinds such as sassafras, lye from 
hardwood ashes, and sugar. 
The following is from an old letter printed in 
The Pioneers; or, The Sources of the Susquehanna, 
by J. Fenimore Cooper: 
“T procured from my friend Henry Drinker a 
credit for a large quantity of sugar-kettles. He also 
lent me some potash-kettles, which we transported 
as best we could, .sometimes by partial roads on 
sleighs, and sometimes over the ice. By these means 
I established potash-works among the settlers, and 
made them debtors for their bread and laboring uten- 
sils. I also gave them credit for their maple-sugar 
and potashes at a price that would bear transporta- 
tion, and the first year after the adoption of this plan 
I collected in one mass forty-three hogsheads of sugar 
and three hundred barrels of pearl ashes, worth about 
nine thousand dollars. This kept the people together, 
and the country soon assumed a new face.” 
The old method was to “box” the tree in a 
rough manner. At the bottom of the cut, or “ box,” 
a shingle or hollow reed was inserted, down which the 
sap trickled into a pail on the ground. The repeated 
wounds, the fermenting of the sap on the tree-trunk, 
and excessive tapping, soon ruined the trees. It was 
then discovered that an auger hole was quite sufficient. 
At first a hole one and a half inches in diameter 
