60 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



'northern exposures, provided they are not over- 

 topped. Should the ground be at all suitable for 

 the crop, each set will produce the first year two 

 gbbd basket-rods, or 24,000 — worth 12 cents per 

 loo or 120, The second year, the sets, being much 

 stronger, will produce on an average six rods, one 

 irtiire or less being considered a very common num- 

 ber — OMe of which may be left on each stock for 

 hoops, and the remaining 00,000 cut for baskets, 

 u-inch would be worth about $120. By the third 

 ve.-ir there ought to be at least. 12,000 hoops, worth 

 $L per 100 or 120, and from 28,000 to 29,000 rods, 

 worth at least $07. 



MAKING MAPLE SUGAR. 



Tue superior flavor ot maple, and high prices of 

 other sugar, will lead every one, this year, to tap 

 the maples. Experience commends the following 

 peculiarities in making maple sugar: 



Tapping tue Trees. — If small, boring with a 

 bit from a quarter inch to an inch will injure trees 

 less than gashing. It is not useful to tap very 

 deep. Hal? an inch to an inch beyond the bark is 

 sufficient. Tap high enough to have the bucket 

 out of reach of animals. 



Buckets. — If new ones are to be obtained, tin, 

 round shape, of about ten or twelve quarts capac- 

 ity, well wired at top, and made just slanting 

 enoiiiih to pack into each other — with an ear 

 soldered on or made by a- loop in the wire to hang 

 them to the tree — will be found cheapest and 

 best- — most cleanly and most durable in proportion 

 lo cost. Such cost, here, 30 cents each. 



Spouts! —Sheet iron (old refuse or scraps may be 

 use>') cut three or four inches long, and an inch and 

 a half Wide at one end, and an inch at the other — 

 filed "i' ground sharp at the broad end, and then 

 roundel by a blow when placed between a hol- 

 lowed piece of hard wood and a rounded one to 

 match — makes the cheapest and best spouts. Drive 

 it into the i'arlc with a hammer. 



Hooks. — Go to a smith shop and pick up the old 

 nails taken from horse-shoes; straighten them; 

 hammer the points flat; and, placing them edge- 

 wi-c on the anvil with the head over the edge, or 

 over the hole in it, draw the head to one side. 

 Drive them into the tree below the spout, sufficient- 

 ly to support the bucket— and your tapping is 

 done. 



Gathering-. — A cask, with tunnel to fill by and 

 faucet, for emptying, and a sled, are the best imple- 

 ments, whether you use a team or hand labor for 

 getting sap home. 



Boiling Apparatus. — Pans, made by thickly 

 ■ailing sheet iron to plank for the sides, and turn- 

 ing Up the iron for the ends, .are cheapest and best. 

 Set them over a mortar-laid arch a foot narrower 

 (six inches on each Bide) than the pan — having a 

 faucet at one corner of the pan to draw off the 

 syrup. Have chimney sufficient to keep a flame 

 under your pan. Have a regulating faucet to your 

 sap reservoir, and let the pan be ted by a stream, 

 that shall fill as fast, as it evaporates. 



Si'oapino Down. — Use a kettle of iron or brass, 

 with the bottom On the ground, and keep a quick 

 and uniform fire around it till the sugar (or syrup, 

 if you desire) is done. If you wish white sugar, 



cook it only so as to grain ; pour it into a bucket, 

 and when it crusts over, tip it on edge to drain. 

 The drippings will. be good maple molasses. Clean- 

 liness, most scrupulous, is the only direction we 

 urge in the manufacture — leaving clarifying pro- 

 cesses to be used, of course, as each one may find 

 best by experience or common information. 



Closing Up. — See that your buckets and pans 

 are clean and dry. Spouts, ditto. Draw the 

 hooks, not merely for future use, but to save your 

 axes and saws if you ever use the tree. 



Attica, m Y. t%-L,Z.%% 



THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER OF FARMING IN 

 ENGLAND. 



A " Practical Farmer " — one of the oldest cor- 

 respondents of the London Marie Lane Express — 

 furnishes that journal with an interesting sketch 

 of the Old and New School farmers of England. 

 We copy what he says of the Old School. The 

 remainder will be given next month. 



Take him in person : the burly personification 

 of old honest "John Bull," in his holiday dress — 

 his large broad-brim, full neckcloth, frilled shirt 

 showing gaily from his capacious waistcoat, (not 

 vest,) his nether garment — i. e. breeches — of buck- 

 sWn, his long, straight, loosely-fitting coat, and 

 heavy top-boots, all of the best materials, and made 

 after the Sir Tattou Sykes type, and now, in good 

 specimen, occasionally to be met with in Somerset- 

 shire. In his every-day dress he would have been 

 found in his slop of blue and his stockings of grey, 

 his chocolate tie, and his buckled shoes, disdaining 

 gloves and gaiters.' In his daily habits he would 

 have been found to rise with the dawn in the sum- 

 mer, and long before it in the winter. He would 

 breakfast at five, dine at twelve, sup at seven, and 

 to bed -at eight; his meals consisting of meat, 

 bread, and beer, morning, noon, and night; occa- 

 sionally joining his wife in a "cheery cup of tea," 

 as a token of a kind and compassionate feeling for 

 womanly weakness. His employments were not 

 very complicated or numerous — business the same 

 in fact and order as it had been for a century pre- 

 vious. His place was with his men, working with 

 them, directing the operations, and merely taking 

 upon himself the higher departments of labor. He 

 would be seen in winter, in all weathers, at the 

 earliest dawn, leaving the threshold with his "fork 

 and fothering-band," making his way to "top 

 twenty closen," where were located some 1 alf- 

 score hardy steers, dependent upon him for their 

 breakfast off the haystack, which invariably, from 

 time immemorial, had been stacked in the precise 

 corner most sheltered. From thence he would visit 

 the sheep, helping them to a few bents of hay each, 

 and an occasional bite of turnip, which now began 

 to ciime into use amongst the improving farmers, 

 who had heard of "Norfolk turnip-growing;" at- 

 tention to, ami superintending his stock being his 

 especial department; the shepherd (a sort of super- 

 numerary') working under his'master — if, indeed, 

 such an appendage was attached to the farm. His 

 "shepherding" done, he saw to his thrashers, 

 who, with flail in hand, were beating out the corn 

 iu his ample barn as best they could. His carters 

 were winter-ploughing, or leading out the manure 



