A iMAPLE-SUGAR CAMP. 439 



tween them meandered several rills, which gently murmured as they has- 

 tened toward the larger stream ; and as the sun dissolved the frozen dews, 

 the few feathered songsters joined the chorus of the woodsmen's daugh- 

 ters. Whenever a burst of laughter suddenly echoed through the woods, 

 an Owl or Wild Turkey would respond to it, with a signal welcome to 

 the young men of the party. With lai-ge ladles the sugar-makers stirred 

 the thickening juice of the maple; pails of sap were collected from the 

 trees and brought in by the young people ; while here and there some 

 sturdy fellow was seen first hacking a cut in a tree, and afterwards boring 

 with an auger a hole, into which he introduced a piece of hollow cane, by 

 which the sap was to be drained off. About half a dozen men had felled 

 a noble yellow poplar, and sawed its great trunk into many pieces, which, 

 after being split, they were scooping into troughs to be placed under the 

 cane-cocks, to receive the maple juice. 



Now, good Reader, should you ever chance to travel through the 

 maple grounds that he near the banks of that lovely stream the Green 

 River of Kentucky, either in January or in March, or through those on 

 the broader Monongahela in April ; nay, should you find yourself by the 

 limpid streamlets that roll down the declivities of the Pocano Mountains 

 to join the Lehigh, and there meet with a sugar-camp, take my advice 

 and tarry for a while. If you be on foot or on horseback, and are thirsty, 

 you can nowhere find a more wholesome or more agreeable beverage than 

 the juice of the maple. A man when in the Floridas may drink molasses 

 diffused in water ; in Labrador he may drink what he can get ; and at 

 New York or Philadelphia he may drink what he chooses ; but in the 

 woods a draught from the sugar-maple is delicious and most refreshing. 

 How often, when travelling, have I quenched my thirst with the limpid 

 juice of the receiving troughs, from which I parted with regret ; nay, 

 even my horse, I have thought, seemed to desire to linger as long as he 

 could. 



But let me endeavour to describe to you the manner in which the su- 

 gar is obtained. The trees that yield it (Ace?- saccharinum) are found more 

 or less abundantly in all parts of the Union from Louisiana to Maine, grow- 

 ing on elevated rich grounds. An incision is made into the trunk, at a height 

 of from two to six feet ; a pipe of cane or of any other kind is thrust into 

 the aperture; a trough is placed beneath and receives the juice, which 

 trickles by drops, and is as limpid as the purest spring water. When all the 

 trees of a certain space have been tapped, and the troughs filled, the peo- 



