VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR 177 



house have come many in the methods of getting 

 the sap from the trees. The pioneer method was 

 to " box " them. This meant cutting a receptacle 

 in the tree itself large enough to hold a pint or so 

 of the liquid which ran into it. Boxing, year after 

 year, was destructive to the trees which, neverthe- 

 less, survived a vast amount of it. It is probable 

 that boxing has not been carried on in the Ver- 

 mont groves for more than fifty years, yet there 

 are trees standing to-day which show marks of 

 the old-time method. On what was known once 

 as the Kathan farm, just west of the Connecticut 

 River in Dummerston, still stand a few trees of 

 what is believed to be the first grove in the State 

 from which white men made maple sugar in any 

 quantity. Thirty-three of these veterans were 

 there in 1874, but now only nine remain. They 

 are gigantic trees, free of limbs to a great height 

 and one at least sixteen feet in circumference. At 

 the base can be seen the knotted, uneven growth 

 covering the scars of nearly seventy years of 

 "boxing." After the boxing method came the 

 tapping iron, almost as hard on the trees. A slant- 

 ing kerf, an inch deep and four inches long, was 



