80 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



botanists name the Acer saccharinum. The method 

 of manufacturing the sugar is extremely simple, and 

 the following is the plan adopted by Mr. Bergeron's 

 men to extract the juice. Furnished with small 

 augers, a number of wooden buckets, and little tubes 

 made of elder or sugar cane, and occasionally of tin, 

 they explore the forest, selecting the best trees. 

 When they have found a good one, they pierce the 

 bark at about a yard from the ground, and introduce 

 a tube, the other end of which is placed in one of the 

 little buckets. Care is taken to pierce the tree in an 

 upward direction, and not to penetrate more than 

 half an inch into the sap-wood. The American cul- 

 tivators declare that by this means a more abundant 

 flow of sap is obtained, and they never omit to bore 

 the holes on the side of the tree towards the south, 

 which also has a tendency to increase the supply. 



The maple sap falls at first in silver drops, and 

 then in a thin stream, which afterwards swells into 

 a current. As soon as a bucket is filled, it is replaced 

 by another, and the whole is collected into large 

 cauldrons, where the evaporation and crystallisation 

 of the sugar is completed. The boiler is hung from 

 two forked beams firmly fixed in the earth, and with 

 a strong trunk of a tree laid across them, from which 

 the boiler depends. A quick fire is kept up beneath, 

 and the juice soon thickens into a syrup. After it 

 has been boiling half an hour, it is taken off the 

 fire and allowed to cool, when the residue is strained 



