2IO A. D. 1790. 



that fpecies of manufacture. And fince the peace many, efpecially in 

 the northern ftates, who difapproved of Negro flavery, have thought it 

 meritorious to promote the manutacture and confumption of a fugar, 

 which can be provided without the labour of flaves. This manufadure 

 has the extraordinary advantages over that of the Weft-India lugar, that 

 the tree grows without requiring any attention to its culture, and con- 

 tinues feveral years to yield the facharine juice, and that the feafon for 

 making fugar is chiefly in February and March, froft being necellary to 

 make the liquor run from the trees, when many other branches of rural 

 induftry are fufpended by the extreme rigour of the feafon in a great 

 part of America: and it grows rather more plentifully in the northern 

 regions, where the great length of the winter renders it almoft impof- 

 lible for the farmer to maintain the number of fervants requifite to per- 

 form the work necefiary to be done in the few weeks of fummer. Hence 

 the manufacture of fugar becomes an im.portant objedl: to fill up the in- 

 duftry of the farmers of Canada and Nova Scotia, whole labours hither- 

 to have been rather unprofitable for about half the year: and the coun- 

 try people bring fugar to market at Quebec, Halifax, &c. as regular as 

 other country produce. 



Though the people in the middle ftates of America hud been accuf- 

 tomed to make fmall quantities of maple fugar, it was not till the y^ar 

 1790, that they began to pay any coniiderable attention to that branch 

 of hufbandry. It was then taken up as an important national object : 

 and lome refined maple fugar was fold in Philadelphia, which was pro- 

 nounced equal to any loaf fugar made from Well-India mufcovado fu- 



The quantity of sugar imported into Philadelphia on an average of five years ' 

 1785 — 17Sg\vas _ _ _ pounds 5,69'2,848 



Loaf susrar in the same time - - 4,480 

 and 543,900 gallons of melasses, considered as equal to - 2,7195500 

 Total quantity of sugar annually consumed in Philadelphia and the") 



country supplied from it _ _ _ ^8,410,828 



In proportion to this quantity, afcertained by official document, the fu- 

 gar necefiary for the whole of the United ftates was eftimated to be about 

 forty-two millions of pounds, which quantity, it is fuppofed, may be 

 produced from 263,000 acres of land bearing the fugar maple : and 

 it is afl^rted that there are eight counties in New York and Pennfylva- 

 nia, any one of which is more thai:i fufficient to fupply the whole of 

 that large quantity, with fcarcely any interruption to the other avoca- 

 tions of the farmer, as two men, one woman, and a child of ten years 

 of age, are capable of performing all the labour necefiary in producing 

 I ,coo pounds of fugar in the two months of February and March *. 



* In tlie family of one planter in Teneffee i,oco the juice of about 90 trees. He ellimates one 

 pounds of fugar weic made by his children in five pound of fu^ar to be the produce of eight gallons 

 boilers (3 of 16, I of 30, and i of 10 gallons) from of juice, (nearly the fame as the proportion of fait 



obtained 



