IN CANADA AND THE STATES. 303 



each tree. Some trees yield three or four pounds — a 

 pound being the estimated yield of each coulisse or tap- 

 hole — and some trees being large and strong enough to 

 bear tapping in several places. Some years also are 

 much more favourable to this crop than others, so that 

 the estimate of a pound a tree Is taken as a basis which, 

 on the whole, may be relied on as fair for landlord and 

 tenant. These trees are rented out to the sugar-makers 

 at a rent of one-fifth of the produce, or one pound for 

 every five trees. March and April are the months in 

 which the trees are tapped, and the best weather is when 

 hard frost during the night Is followed by a hot sun 

 during the day. In Upper Canada, from its proximity 

 to the lakes probably, the sugar weather is more variable, 

 and the crop less certain than in Lower Canada. 



The first sap that flows In April is clear, colourless, 

 and without taste. After standing a day or two, this 

 sap becomes sweet ; and a few days after the tree has 

 begun to run, the sap flows sweet. The last sap flows 

 thick, and makes an inferior sugar, called here sucre de 

 seve. When boiled carefully in earthen-ware or glazed 

 pots, the clear sap gives at once a beautifully white sugar, 

 and especially if it be drained in moulds and clayed, as is 

 done with common loaf-sugar. When pure white, how- 

 ever, it cannot be distinguished from refined cane-sugar. 

 It is generally preferred of a brown, and by many of a 

 dark-brown colour, because of the rich maple flavour It 

 possesses — a flavour which, though novel to a stranger, 

 soon becomes very much relished. It Is an article of 

 regular diet among the Lower Canadians. On fast-days, 

 bread and maple sugar are eaten in preference to fish. 

 In spring it sells as low as 3d. a pound, but in winter it 

 rises sometimes as high as 6d. 



In some of the townships of the Eastern Counties — as 

 the district is called which lies between this place and 

 the borders of Maine and New Hampshire — maple-groves 



