meat in order to correct its putrescencey ; hence, probably, the custom 

 of eating sweet apple sauce with pork and goose, and currant jelly 

 with hare and venison." 



Among the many plant specimens sent from the New World by 

 the famous botanist, John Bartram, to Peter CoUinson, of London, 

 England, were seeds of the sugar maple, which occasioned much com- 

 ment, the tree being practically unknown in England. CoUinson had 

 already written to his "Kind Friend John Bartram," (in 1735) : 



"I am mightily pleased with thy account of the Sugar Tree. 

 Pray send me a little sprig, with two or three leaves dried between 

 a sheet of paper, and if thee canst, the blossom. We imagine, here it 

 is a poplar or maple, but when we see the flowers or seed-vessel, we 

 shall soon determine." Six months later, having received the speci- 

 mens he wanted, he wrote to Bartram again: 



"The leaves of the Sugar Tree are very informing, and are a 

 great curiosity; but we wish thee had gathered little branches with 

 the flowers on them and some little branches with the keys on them. 

 The seeds of this tree (which, by the leaves and keys is a real Maple) , 

 I cracked a many of them, and not one has a kernel in them, which 

 I am surprised at. We must desire thee, next year, to make another 

 attempt and send us some specimens. Its bearing white blossoms is 

 an elegance above any other of this tribe that I know of." 



The Sugar Maple and the Abolitionists 



One does not naturally associate the sugar maple with anti- 

 slavery agitation, and yet the hopes of earnest abolitionists, one hun- 

 dred and twenty-five or more years ago, were centered in this tree. 

 As it would yield so easily and naturally such quantities of sugar, there 

 seemed no further need for importing this necessary article from the 

 West Indies, where it was produced from cane by the hard labor of 

 slaves, nor for allowing such a condition to continue in the United 

 States. 



Monsieur J. P. Brissot, who published in 1788, an account of his 

 travels in America, was evidently much impressed with the idea. He 

 writes as follows: "Providence, my friend, seems to have placed in 

 the bosom of the continent that slavery has sullied and tormented most 

 cruelly, two great means which ought, inevitably, to work its destruc- 

 tion, that, is the society of which I have spoken to you, and the Sugar 

 Maple. . . . The settlers established in the middle of forests in 

 America, limit themselves, hitherto, to a very slight manipulation to 

 get this sugar ... but since the quakers have perceived in this tree a 

 means of destroying the slave trade, since to replace the cane sugar 

 they have felt the necessity of perfectioning the Sugar Maple, more 

 attention has been given to the manipulation, and success has crowned 

 their efforts. You know, my friend, ail the conditions that are neces- 

 sary to be united for the cultivation of the sugar cane . . . the enemies 

 and accidents that that plant fears (is subject to) , the labor, its culti- 



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