ON GUM AND SUGAR TREES 
sary is to bore an auger hole in the trunk of the 
tree, and insert a spigot or grooved stick to guide 
the sap into a bucket. 
A single tree may be tapped in several places, 
and a bucket of sap will run from each ‘spigot in 
the course of the day. 
The sap itself is a clear, watery fluid, the sweet 
taste of which gives assurance of the quality of 
the sugar it contains. By boiling the sap to evap- 
orate the surplus water, a thick syrup is produced 
which crystallizes on cooling, producing the maple 
sugar of commerce. 
Nothing is added to the sap and nothing but 
part of its watery content is taken away from it— 
that is to say, if it is honestly made. The sugar as 
the maple supplies it, is a perfect product requir- 
ing no diluent and calling for no elaborate process 
of manufacture. 
Perhaps it is not so much matter for surprise 
that maple trees produce this sweet sap in such 
abundance as that other trees do not more gener- 
ally imitate its example. For the function of the 
sugar in supplying nourishment for the young buds 
before the leaves are sufficiently expanded to begin 
their work of sugar manufacture is clearly enough 
understood. All other deciduous trees must supply 
nutriment in similar way to their growing buds. 
But in the case of other trees, either the sap 
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