No. 133.] 465* • 



The chairman said, that great improvMuents had been made 

 in the raanutacturing of maple sugar. Ke had seen at recent 

 Fairs, specimens of it, which would lose nothing, when compared 

 with Stuart's best refined loaf sugar. 



Mr. Pike doubted whether the sugar maple yielded sap enough 

 to be worth having at twenty-five years of age. He had them of 

 that age, and they do not give sap worth the trouble of tapping 

 the trees. 



Mr. Nash. — The tree requires (fur much sap) a cool, moist, 

 rich soil ; when transplanted to a dry one, it degenerates. It 

 loves frosty ground, grows well, and yields abundantly its sap. 

 When taken to the southward it degenerates. It thrives northerly 

 to Labrador and to Hudson's Eay. I never saw one growing in a 

 swamp. It h.ves a 'clear mountainous country. When broken by 

 ice or cut away by the axe, leave but one chief limb on the body, 

 and it thrives, I think, by an electrical action. 



Chairman. — It does best in Ohio and Kentucky, upon tiie flat- 

 lands of those States, where it grows in vast groves and forests. 



• 



Judge Van Wyck. — We have had a very important communi- 

 cation made to us to-day, by Counsellor Nash, on the produce of 

 the acer saccharinum, or sugar maple of the United States. The 

 statistics here given are taken from the latest and best soui'ces at 

 Washington, show clearly, the tre>e, for its prosperous growth 

 requires a rich soil, and pretty high northern latitude. From 

 these it appears that the quantity diminishes much after leaving 

 Virginia and runs down to almost nothing on the banks of Mis- 

 sissippi, and the southern section of it. In the western and north- 

 western States it increases, and in some of them largely. Ver- 

 mont, for her size and population, gives a large amount. New- 

 York yields the greatest to — 10,000,000 lbs. ; — this, perhaps, is 

 owing in some degree to her size, and the numbers engaged in the 

 business. Ohio from four to five millions. All the northwcfetern 

 states will increase in quajitity as their population fills up. As 

 to the inducements of our people to preserve and increase the 

 numbers of this valuable tree, they are many and strong. The 

 sugar is more healthy, palatable and cleaner, than that made 



