302 MANUFACTURE OF MAPLE SUGAR 



worthless, and contains only the curd and the sugar of 

 the new milk.* 



But the maple-sugar manufacture of this neighbour- 

 hood was more interesting, as it possessed more novelty 

 to me. The importance of this Industry to the Canadas 

 may be judged of from the fact that, In 1848, there 

 was made, In Canada West, as much as 4,140,667 lb. 

 of maple sugar, or nearly 6 lb. for each inhabitant. 

 In Lower Canada, in 1844, the quantity produced was 

 2,250,000. If we suppose it now to be 3,000,000, the 

 whole quantity of maple sugar produced in average years, 

 in all Canada, is about 7,000,000 lb. There are imported 

 besides, of West India sugar, about 20,000,000 lb. — 

 so that the home produce amounts to one-fourth of the 

 home consumption. 



Maple sugar is also an Important article of rural 

 Industry in some of the United States. In Michigan, 

 the produce in 1848 was estimated at 1,774,368 lb. ; and 

 in Vermont and New Hampshire, it amounted to several 

 millions of pounds, f 



Major Campbell is himself a maple-sugar grower to a 

 considerable extent. On his domain he possesses about 

 12,000 trees, which yield on an average about a pound 



* Another variety, which I believe is the genuine esteemed Epping 

 butter, is made by churning alone the cream which rises naturally during 

 the first twentj^-four houi's. This gives a much more delicately flavoured 

 butter than when all the cream which the milk will yield is mixed and 

 churned together. 



t The Report of the Patent Office for 1847 estimated the maple- 

 sugar crop for that year in New Hampshire at 2,250,000, in Vermont at 

 10,000,000, and in New York State at 12,000,000 lb. But it estimated 

 that of Michigan, in the same year, at 3,250,000 lb. ; whereas the 

 returns published by the legislature of that State make it only 1,750,000 

 for 1848, which was a remarkably good sugar year, I doubt, therefore, 

 that exaggerations may exist also in the returns for Vermont and New 

 York, as given in the Patent Office Report for 1847, p. 85, and there- 

 fore I have not introduced the numbers into the text. The estimate 

 for Upper Canada is taken from the Reports of the Canadian Board of 

 Registration and Statistics, published at Montreal in 1849. 



