APRIL 



221 



The sugar maple should not be tapped before it is 

 twenty-iive years old, but the process may be repeated 

 annually without apparent injury to the tree. Open 

 winters are supposed to make the sweetest sugar, and 

 much freezing and thawing to be necessary to the abun- 

 dant production of its best quality. The sap season con- 



sular Maple. 



tinues for six weeks, but in this time there may not be 

 more than fifteen really good sap days. These are clear 

 bright days, with a westerly wind and frosty nights. 



The farmer taps the tree with a three-quarter-inch 

 auger, and into the hole thus made puts an iron or wooden 

 spout, from which is suspended the pail. This receives the 

 sweet sap, which flows at the rate of about seventy drops 

 per minute when it runs most rapidly. The usual amount 

 of sap given by a tree in a season is twenty-five gallons, 

 which yields about five pounds of sugar. Formerl}', the 

 sap was boiled in long pans over a bricked-in log fire, 

 but nowadays it is put in one end of a patent evapo- 

 rating machine as sap, and comes out at the other as 

 syrup. 



