ABOUT FBirrrs, flowkes and farmixg. 157 



with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily 

 strikes a black color with tea. 



The process of making a pure white sugar is simple and 

 unexpensive. The lime added to the sap, combining with 

 the peculiar acid of the maple, forms a neutral salt ; this 

 salt is found to be easily soluble in alcohol. Dr. Jackson 

 recommends the following process. Procure sheet-iron 

 cones, with an aperture at the small end or apex — let 

 them be coated with white-lead and boiled linseed-oil, and 

 thoroughly dried, so that no part can come off. [We do 

 not know why earthen cones, unglazed and painted, would 

 not answer equally well, besides being much cheaper.] 

 Let the sugar be put into these cones, stopping the hole in 

 the lower end until it is entirely cool. Then remove the 

 stopper, and pour upon the base a quantity of strong 

 Avhisky or fourth-proof rum * — allow this to filtrate through 

 imtil the sugar is white. "When the loaf is dried it will be 

 pure white sugar, with the exception of the alcohol. To 

 get rid of this, dissolve the sugar in pure boiling hot-water, 

 and let it evaporate until it is dense enough to crystallize. 

 Then put it again into the cone-moulds and let it harden. 

 The dribblets which come away from the cone while the 

 whisky is draining, may be used for making vinegar. It 

 is sometimes the case that whisky would, if freely used in 

 a sugar camp, go off in a wrong direction, benefiting neither 

 the sugar nor the sugar-maker. If, on this account, any 

 prefer another mode, let them make a saturated solution 

 of loaf-sugar, and pour it in place of the whisky upon the 

 base of the cones. Although the sugar ^\'ill not be quite 

 as white, the drainings will form an excellent molasses, 

 whereas the drainings by the former method are good only 

 for vinegar. 



* If those who drink whisky would pour it on to the sugar in the refin- 

 ing cones, instead of upon sugar in tumblers, it would refine them as 

 much as it does the sugar ; performing two valuable processes at once. 



