CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT 



159 



sugar State, a good deal comes from New Hampshire, for early growth and development during the next 

 New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, spring. These outer layers are more full of sap in the 

 and northern Indiana. early spring than at any other time. After the bright- 



colored leaves have dropped from the tree in the autumn, 



GATHERING SAP IX WOODEN" BARRELS 



The barrels are chained to a sled, which is shod with wood and so easily 

 nulled over the rough ground and through a grove of maples. 



( 'ne of the great delights of a child's farm life in these 

 States is when they begin work in the "sugar bush." In 

 fact, a large part of the year 

 has pleasures connected 

 with it. In the first place, 

 there is the work of get- 

 ting the supplies ready in 

 the fall, and of getting and 

 storing the wood for boil- 

 ing down the sap. In some 

 places, particularly in the 

 Adirondack Mountains in 

 Xew York, making maple 

 sugar has become a regular 

 business, with special ma- 

 chinery and large buildings 

 almost like factories, in- 

 stead of the small sugar 

 sheds of the farm woodlot. 

 There are many puzzling 

 questions about the flow of 

 sap in trees, and even the 

 scientists do not fully un- 

 derstand it. We have seen 

 how the tree itself is a fac- 

 tory, and how the leaves 

 make and -tore up more 

 starch than is needed for 

 its growth during the sum- 

 mer, as a reserve supply in 

 the cells of the sapwood 

 or outer layers of the tree. 



TWO THIRSTY SUGAR MAKERS 



Where is the child, living where sugar maples grow, who has not, when 

 the trees are taliped, had many a sip of the sweetish, refreshing sap 

 which flows into the buckets? 



BOILING SAP INTO SYRUP 



This is the primitive, old-fashioned method of boiling the sap in open 

 pans. It is, perhaps, the one most familiar to children and the one 

 in which they most delight; for it is more fun to be at the open fire 

 than to see the sap boiling in the modern sugar house. 



the roots still go on bringing in water, and the amount of 

 water in the tree keeps growing larger and larger through 



the months of December, 

 January, February a n d 

 March until at the end of 

 this time these outer tissues 

 are nearly half water. 



Just why this water flows 

 so actively in the spring is 

 not fully known, but it is 

 supposed that it may be due 

 largely to the fact that the 

 water expands with heat, 

 or that the cells become ac- 

 tive and exert an actual 

 pressure. Every year 

 around the sugar-boiling 

 fires in the woods the old 

 men who have been tapping 

 trees year after year have 

 discussions as to whether 

 the sap flows up or down, 

 and nobody seems able to 

 decide it. This is perhaps 

 just as well, because there 

 are not too many such good 

 subjects in the world to talk 

 about. Probably the truth 

 of the matter is that the sap 

 comes out of the "spile" 

 from all directions, because 

 water, under pressure, has 



