Days of a Man 



Clearing 

 swamps 



Boiling 

 sap 



Apple 

 culture 



Other tasks, not uncongenial but more laborious 

 than the care and breeding of sheep, fell at times to 

 my lot. On the farm were a number of small spring- 

 fed swamps unavailable for cultivation until they 

 were drained. In them the common timber was the 

 black ash, interspersed with occasional thickets of 

 aspen on the drier places. One of my duties was to 

 cut down and burn the trees and brush preparatory 

 to drainage. In the outlets of some of the swamps I 

 found the bog ore of iron, but no use has ever been 

 made of it. 



The making of sugar from the sweet sap of the 

 sugar maple Acer saccharum is a regular yearly 

 matter in our part of New York. The flow com- 

 mences with the melting of snow in March and 

 continues until the leaves begin to expand, at which 

 time the sap takes on a bitter flavor. Our grove 

 was a small but very good one. The spring I was 

 fourteen, it was turned over to me, and I myself 

 tapped the trees, gathered the liquid, boiled it 

 down, and made the sugar. 



I was also much interested in our apple orchard. 

 Around the house stood a number of large and fine 

 old trees. In my childhood Father extended this 

 orchard up the steep moraine bounding the bull- 

 head pond. At about the age of ten I used to record 

 regularly the number and kind of apples on each of 

 the young trees he had added. Afterward he and 

 I together planted a row in alternate angles of 

 the zigzag rail fence bounding the farm on the 

 south. 



I must, however, confess that neither physically 

 nor intellectually did I ever exert myself to the limit 

 of possible effort. Yet in college it was commonly 



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