45 



The tree is of rapid growth and of cleanly and beautiful ap- 

 pearance. As an ornamental tree, I know of no handsomer 

 variety. Its plantation in long avenues for the embellishment 

 of the streets and the road-sides is much prevailing in the beau- 

 tiful villages of the Connecticut valley, where it finds a conge- 

 nial soil and grows with great luxuriance. Some of the sugar 

 produced, where it is manufactured with care, in color, clear- 

 ness and brilliancy is equal to the best raw sugar of New Or- 

 leans and Jamaica. This variety (acer saccharinum) of maple 

 abounds in many parts of the country. The sap from the white 

 or soft maple is not so strong as that from the rock maple ; but 

 is yielded in equal abundance and makes equally good sugar. — 

 A sugar orchard of five hundred trees is calculated to yield over 

 a thousand lbs. of sugar, and often much more than this. It is 

 not unusual to find a tree which will yield six gallons of sap per 

 day. 



The weather most favorable for making sugar is when it 

 freezes by night and thaws by day. No sap can be ob- 

 tained with advantage after the buds begin to swell. Sugar 

 is sometimes made in the autumn, but by no means with equal 

 advantage as in the spring. It is advisable to tap a tree on the 

 south side, because it is more likely to thaw there and the sap 

 is obtained sooner in the morning ; but no difference is perceived 

 in the sweetness of the sap from either side. 



The best mode of tapping the trees, as I learn 'from some 

 practical men, who have been familiar with the manufacture 

 of sugar for thirty years, is with a narrow chisel. An incision 

 is made in the tree which is technically called a box. If made 

 with care, this incision is thought not to injure the tree. It will 

 soon close ; and, after a year or two, the tree may be tapped 

 again in the same place. The tapping of trees, as is often done, 

 by boring into them with an auger to the depth of three or four 

 inches, is much disapproved. Trees tapped in this way do not 

 yield any more sap than those tapped in other ways ; and in ex- 

 amining such trees after they have been felled, it is found that 

 these deep borings never heal like the incisions made with a 



