440 A MAPLE-SUGAR CAMP. 



pie collect the juice, and pour it into large vessels. A camp has already 

 been pitched in the midst of a grove, several iron boilers have been fixed 

 on stone or brick supports, and the business proceeds with vigour. At times 

 several neighbouring families join, and enjoy the labour as if it were a past- 

 time, remaining out day and night for several weeks ; for the troughs and 

 kettles must be attended to from the moment when they are first put in 

 requisition until the sugar is produced. The men and boys perform the 

 most laborious part of the business, but the women and girls are not less 

 busy. 



It takes ten gallons of sap to produce a pound of &ne-grained sugar ; 

 but an inferior kind in lumps, called cake-sugar, is obtained in greater 

 quantity. When the season is far advanced, the juice will no longer 

 grain by boiling, and only produces a syrup. I have seen maple sugar 

 so good, that some months after it was manufactiu-ed it resembled candy ; 

 and well do I remember the time when it was an article of commerce 

 throughout Kentucky, where, twenty-five or thirty years ago, it sold at 

 from 6^ to 12^ cents per pound, according to its quality, and was daily 

 purchased in the markets or stores. 



Trees that have been thus bored rarely last many years ; for the cuts 

 and perforations made in their trunks injure their health, so that after 

 some years of weeping they become sickly, exhibit monstrosities about 

 their lower parts, gradually decay, and at length die. I have no doubt, 

 however, that, with proper care, the same quantity of sap might be ob- 

 tained with less injury to the trees ; and it is now fully time that the far- 

 mers and land-owners should begin to look to the preservation of their 

 sugar-maples. 



