TREES Ot AMERICA. 71 



" Yes, with the help of a very strong heat, 

 and a certain portion of flint, or fine sand. 

 They put potash and flint-stones, broken up 

 small, into a melting-pot, and shut them up 

 in a furnace, with a large fire under the melt- 

 ing-pot ; the heat is made very intense by 

 constantly blowing ; and after a long time, 

 the flint and the potash are melted together 

 into a substance that looks something like 

 honey ; and this substance, when it gets hard, 

 is glass. But, after all, the great value of this 

 tree is in the sugar ; and as I suspect that 

 you have never seen the operation of making 

 it, I will describe it to you, as I have seen it 

 done at the west. 



" The first thing to be considered is the 

 right season for tapping, and this is generally 

 at the end of February or the beginning of 

 March, when the sap begins to ascend. Then 

 a shed is built in some convenient spot near 

 the trees to be tapped, large enough to shelter 

 the boilers, and the persons who tend them ; 

 and this is called a sugar-camp. The tools- 

 that the sugar-boilers require are only an 

 auger three-quarters of an inch wide, to bore 

 the trees with, tubes eight or ten inches long, 

 made of elder, troughs to receive the sap from 



