OLD HOMESTEAD 



they were all there, boiled nights, sugared-off, and gone through 

 all the various operations which the alchemy of the mind so 

 readily and vividly reproduces. 



The beauties of the sugar woods when the great pall known 

 as "■ sugar snow " hung on every limb and twig, to me have never 

 been surpassed by any pictures which I have seen or any forest 

 scenery which I have had the fortune to look at. Sap gathering, 

 with the sugar snow letting go the limbs and falling on and 

 about you until every thread of your clothing was soaked, was 

 not so romantic. 



The sugar-bush work was hard, smoky and wet, but I liked 

 it, and my liking it and knowing how to do it well gave me 

 plenty of it. There was an uncertainty and excitement about it 

 that was interesting and stimulating, and, to the boy that I was, 

 the responsibility so early placed upon me of occasionally boss- 

 ing and running the sugar-bush alone, swelled my pride — and 

 probably my head. 



The work came at a time of year when there was not much 

 to be done on the farm, except taking care of the cows and 

 the cattle. It paid well, as all sugar was then dear, and 

 good maple sugar was salable at twelve and a half cents 

 per pound. We sometimes made twenty-five hundred or three 

 thousand pounds of cake sugar, besides plenty of syrup and 

 molasses, which supplied the family for the year and left a 

 couple of hundred dollars' worth to sell or exchange for other 

 merchandise. 



I have been writing of the method in vogue in my father's 

 sugar-bush from 1845 to 1867, which came within the scope of 

 my own personal recollection and experience. Back of that, 

 maple-sugar making was done very differently. The trees were 

 "boxed " with an ax, instead of bored with a bit. In fact, they 



51 



