200 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE, 



truth. The product for Vermont alone, for 1845, was esti- 

 mated at over 10,000,000 Ibs. The quantity supposed to be 

 annually sold in the city of New York, exceeds 10,000 hhds. 

 Both the sugar and syrup are used for every purpose for which 

 the cane is employed. 



The sugar maple extends from the most northern limits of 

 Maine and the shores of Lake Superior, to the banks of the 

 Ohio. Further South it is rarely found. The cane and 

 maple approach each other but scarcely meet, and never in 

 termingle as rivals in the peculiar region which nature has 

 assigned to each. In some sections of the -country, the 

 sugar maple usurps almost the entire soil, standing side by 

 side, like thick ranks corn, yet large and lofty, arid among the 

 noblest specimens' of the forest. The- writer has thus repeat- 

 edly seen them around the Manitouvvoc river, near the coast 

 of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, and in the loeautiful sugar 

 orchards of the same country, where unlike the others, they 

 grow in open land among the rich native grasses, their tops 

 graceful and bushy like the cultivated tree, and but for their 

 greater numbers and extent and their more picturesque 

 grouping, one would think the hand of taste and civilization 

 had directed what nature alone has accomplished. And amid 

 those beautiful orchards, or in the depths of those dense dark 

 woods, the Indian wigwam and the settler's rude cabin may 

 be seen, filled with the solid cakes and mokoks* which con- 

 tain from 30 to 60 Ibs. of their coarse-grained, luscious 

 sugar. 



The season for drawing and chrystalizing the sap is in 

 early spring when the bright sunny days and clear frosty 

 nights, give it a full and rapid circulation. The larger trees 

 should be selected and tapped by an inch auger to the depth 

 of an inch and a half, the hole inclining downward to hold 

 the sap. At the base of this, another should be made from 

 3-8 to 1-2 an^inch diameter, in which a tube of elder or 

 sumach should be closely fitted to conduct it off. A rude con- 

 trivance for catching the sap is with troughs made usually of 

 the easily wrought poplar, but it is better to use vessels which 

 admit of thorough cleansing, and these may be suspended by 

 a bail or handle from a peg driven into the tree above. If 



*Mo-kok An Indian sack or basket, with flattish sides and rounded ends^ 

 similar in fashion to a ladiea travelling satchel. They are made perfectly tight, o 

 strips of white birch bark, eevyed with thongs of elm. They make some of their 

 E.I:' buckets of the same material, but different in form. The small mo-koks, taste- 

 f jliy ornamented with various colored porcupine quills and filled with maple sugar, 

 are sold for toys. 



