DENSMORD] PLANTS AS FOOD 311 
time. Tapping was done only by those who were expert in the use 
of an ax, though women as well as men engaged in the task. (PI. 33, 
6.) The trees were arranged in paths so that the collecting of the sap 
could be conveniently done. A good worker could make 300 tappings 
ina day. The tapping consisted in making a diagonal cut in a tree 
about 344 inches long and about 3 feet from the ground. Below the 
lower end of this cut the bark was removed in a perpendicular line for 
a distance of about 4 inches. A wooden spile was inserted below this 
point. The wooden spiles were commonly made of slippery elm and 
were about 6 inches long, 2 inches wide, and curved on the under 
surface. The distance of a spile below the cut in a maple tree 
depended on the grain and hardness of the wood. If it were inserted 
too near the cut there was danger that the wood might split. The 
cut in which the spile was inserted could be made with an ax, or with 
a tool resembling a curved chisel, which was pounded into the tree 
and removed for the insertion of the wooden spile. 
The sap dishes were distributed in the early morning, being placed 
on the ground or the snow beneath the taps. If the weather were 
cold the sap did not run during the night, and accordingly in the 
late afternoon when it stopped running the people began to gather it, 
pouring from the dishes into bark pails carried by the women, or large 
buckets carried by the men. In the very large camps it was some- 
times necessary to have barrels stationed at a distance from the sugar 
lodge, and to fill them and haul them on sleds. A shoulder yoke 
enabling a man to carry two buckets was used among the Chippewa 
to some extent, but it is said that the use of the yoke was learned from 
the French, and did not represent a native custom. 
When the sap was taken to the camp it was put into the kettles or 
poured into the troughs at the doors. The large kettles were at first 
filled only partially, the sap being heated in the smaller kettles near 
the ends of the fire and emptied from these into the large kettles, 
in which the actual boiling was done. By this means the entire 
quantity of sap was heated gradually. (PI. 33, a.) 
All night the fires were kept burning and the kettles boiling, cer- 
tain people taking turns in watching them. If a kettle boiled too 
rapidly a branch of spruce attached to a stick was dipped into the 
froth. The motion was little more than a brushing of the froth with 
the spruce, but the bubbling at once subsided. By early morning 
the sirup was slightly thickened and ready to strain. In the old days 
a mat woven of narrow strips of basswood bark was placed over an 
extra kettle, and the sirup was strained through this mat, being 
dipped from the kettle with large wooden spoons. In more recent 
times the sirup is slowly strained through a burlap, and it is said 
that a clean threadbare white blanket was occasionally used for this 
