126 PALM-SUGAR. 



four hours, which j'ielded ij\ lbs. of crystallized sugrar. A maple 

 of ordinary dimensions, in a good year, will yield, on an average, 

 ahout 198 pints of sap, producing 5^ lbs. of sugar. The sap of the 

 maple must therefore contain about 2.2 per cent, of its weight of 

 marketable sugar. It has been found, that with care and attention 

 the maple becomes more productive ; maples around which other 

 forest trees have been felled, or which have been transplanted into 

 gardens, yield a sap which is not only more abundant, but also 

 richer in sugar, which, in fact, contains about three per cent, of 

 sugar. 



The manufacture of maple sugar presents no peculiarity ; pre- 

 cisely the same process is followed as in the case of the cane and 

 beet. Unless very speedily boiled down, the sap ferments, and 

 undergoes change ; in some parts of the United States, indeed, a 

 vinous liquor is made of the sap, by allowing it to run into sponta- 

 neous fermentation. 



PALM SUGAR. 



The palm which in the southern parts of India furnishes crystal- 

 lized sugar in large quantity, is the cleophora of Gaertner, and 

 reaches a height of about 100 feet. Its fruit hangs in clusters up- 

 wards of a yard in length. The natives procure the sap by cutting 

 short one of the shoots that is about to flower and carry fruit, and 

 hanging under the cut part of a calabash or other vessel, into which 

 the fluid 'distils ; in a large plantation such an apparatus is seen 

 connected with each palm-tree ; the sap is removed every morning, 

 and it is enough to reduce it by evaporation to obtain the sugar, 

 which differs in no respect from the tinest sugar of the cane ; in the 

 unrefined state it is known over the whole of the East under the 

 name of jaggery,* and is then a kind of moist and sticky muscovado 

 sugar. The sap of the palm-tree obtained in the way above indica- 

 ted, is often turned into a vinous liquor, which is much prized in 

 many places. The pith of the tree yields sago. The palm-trees 

 cultivated in India consequently yield three most useful products — 

 sugar, oil, and the farinaceous article of diet called sago. In rear- 

 ing the cocoa-nut palm, those nuts are selected for seed which fall 

 naturally, and they are dried in their husk. The ground which is 

 to be sown is dug to a depth of eighteen or twenty inches, and it is 

 left *o settle for three or tour days. Some portion of the surface is 

 then taken away, and the fresh soil is covered, to the depth of ab«)ut 

 six inches, with sand. The nuts are then placed upon the ground 

 80 prepared, and covered over with a little sand and a light stratum 

 of vegetable mould ; they are then watered for three days consecu- 

 tively. In the course of three nuuiths the young palms are fit to be 

 transplanted, and they are set at the distance of about twenty feet 

 every way from one another. For their reception in the permanent 



• This Is the poncric nnnw tor sucar. i»iul is obviously either the Lntin word wic- 

 chnruiii, <)r from the smne r(K»t ns the Lilin word. The ciKo;i-nut tree lrci»te»l in the 

 ■nine way ns tlie ileophori yields abundunce uf sugar, which is also known under ltt« 

 name ol'jugKcry. — Eno. Ed. 



