48 



bright and clean. All color gets into the sap after it is taken 

 frc m the tree. The sap, when it comes from the tree, is as col- 

 orless as pure water. I have seen maple sugar, which was 

 dried to sugar by the sun ; it was as white as snow, and very 

 pleasant to the taste. I have never thought that an artificial 

 color added any thing to the value of butter, cheese or sugar. 

 I am told that sheet-iron pans, which are much used at present 

 to boil the sap down in, are preferable to kettles ; they boil 

 faster, and it never burns upon the pan. Of this I know noth- 

 ing by experience. We boil the sap down at the rate of twen- 

 ty to one ; it is then set in tubs to settle ; and in twenty-four 

 hours, you turn off what is clear. It may be kept several 

 weeks, if you choose, without injury, unless it be very warm 

 weather, which will occasion it to ferment. The dregs left in 

 the tubs may be cleansed in several ways. They may be mix- 

 ed with sap from the tree and settled again, or saleratus may 

 be used, or milk, or an egg beat up, put into it, and boiled ; 

 the filth will rise and may be skimmed off, and so prevent any 

 material loss. The syrup ought to be boiled down to settle 

 once in twenty-four hours ; for the less sap is boiled to sugar 

 at a time, the better the sugar will be. One barrel of sap boiled 

 to sugar will be whiter and better than five barrels ; five than 

 ten, and so on. 



" The operation of boiling the syrup into sugar is better learn- 

 ed by seeing it done than by writing. 1 will, however, give 

 you a sketch of the way we proceed. We boil the syrup to 

 sugar in a brass kettle, being lighter and easier to handle than 

 iron. We boil about twenty-five or thirty pounds at a time in 

 a common five-pail kettle. The heat should be steady without 

 much blaze. If it is intended for lump sugar, we boil it until 

 it will cleave quickly and easily from an axe or some smooth 

 and hard substance that is cold. We turn it into earthen pans 

 and stir it moderately until it is thoroughly grained, thence in- 

 to dishes or smaller pans to cool. If for dry lively sugar, we 

 boil it until it will break and fly like rosin, when streamed into 

 cold water or upon an axe. We then pour it into large earth= 



