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chisel. Some persons maintain, that trees, if the operation is 

 judiciously performed, so far from being injured by being tapped, 

 gain increased vigor from it. 



In the manufacture of the sugar, cleanliness in all the vessels 

 for collecting the sap and boiling and refining it is of paramount 

 importance. Troughs made of new and unseasoned wood and 

 any acidity or mouldiness in the backets used for collecting the 

 sap are likely to injure the sugar. It has been recommended by 

 some persons, instead of wooden buckets for collecting the sap, 

 to use earthen vessels. These would be more difficult and un- 

 safe for transportation ; and liable to be broken by the frost. 



I subjoin an account of the manufacture given to me by an 

 intelligent farmer, who has been familiar with it more than 

 forty years. 



''No two persons take exactly the same method, yet all think 

 their own the best, I will tell you the course which we pur- 

 sue. The sap-tubs are made thoroughly clean by scouring with 

 sand and water, and scalding them as soon as they are taken 

 from the trees in the spring. They are housed until the next 

 spring, and we scald them again before they are put to the trees. 

 It is found impossible to make good sugar unless the tubs are 

 cleansed from an acid and mould which is taken from the sap 

 the preceding spring ; otherwise the tubs will become black and 

 the sugar will not grain. I tap my trees with an inch and a 

 quarter chisel. We cut into the wood of the tree about three 

 quarters of an inch in a sloping direction, so that the box (as we 

 call it) will hold a spoonful or more. We bore so as to strike 

 the lowest place in the box with a three-eighths of an inch 

 breast-bit. The spouts are made and sharpened to suit the bit. 

 A man who is used to it will box three hundred in a day ; an- 

 other man will bore and set the spouts. Some persons tap their 

 trees by boring into the trees with a half or three-quarters of 

 an inch bit or auger ; but 1 am persuaded that it hurts the tree 

 much more than the chisel. So far as the spout is driven into 

 the wood we get no sap, and of course we must bore into the 

 tree three or four inches, which will occasion it to rot at the 



