THE MAPLES 77 



Very early in the spring, often as early as March, 

 the sap begins to flow up through the tree. The farmer 

 knows by experience when to tap the tree, which he 

 does by boring a three-quarter inch hole with an auger. 

 Into this hole he inserts a spout of wood or iron through 

 which the lifeblood of the tree the sap flows in a 

 steady drip, drip, drip, into a pail or bucket placed beneath 

 to catch it. 



The sap comes in drops about as regularly as the ticks 

 of a clock, one a second. This continues for two or 

 three weeks, until each tree has yielded something like 

 twenty-five gallons. As it takes five gallons of sap to 

 produce a pound of sugar, each tree yields about five 

 pounds of maple sugar. In New England and New York 

 there are maple groves containing thousands of trees, 

 and one farm alone produces five thousand pounds of 

 sugar in a season. 



Strange as it may seem, this excessive bleeding of the 

 trees does not kill them unless improperly done. The 

 farmer must not tap them at the wrong time nor in too 

 many places. The tree will stand a great deal if prop- 

 erly treated, but harsh treatment will kill it. 



The boiling process is very simple. The sap is poured 

 into large boilers or evaporators and boiled until it be- 

 comes a sirup. The old-fashioned test to find out when 

 the boiling had been carried on long enough was to drop 



