234 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



One man sold 600 lbs. made in one ,season, entirely with 

 his own hands; another, without any assistance, and 

 besides attending to the other business of his farm, made 

 640 lbs. in four weeks. 



The Indians in Canada have made Maple sugar time 

 out of mind, and obtained a pound from every gallon of 

 sap. The French began to refine it in that country 

 towards the close of the seventeenth century. 



During the summer months, and early part of autumn, 

 the tree yields a thinner sap, not fit for sugar; this 

 affords a pleasant beverage in harvest-time, and is some- 

 times used instead of rum, by farmers in Connecticut, 

 whose ancestors have left them here and there a Maple 

 tree in the midst of a field, probably intended as a shade 

 for their cattle. Mr. Bruce describes a beverage of the 

 same kind, prepared by the inhabitants of Egypt, by 

 infusing the sugar-cane in water ; which he declares to 

 be the most refreshing drink in the world. 



Baron la Houtan gives the following account of the 

 sap of the Sugar Maple, when used as a drink : " The 

 tree yields a sap, which has a much pleasanter taste 

 than the best lemonade or cherry-water, and makes 

 the wholesomest drink in the world. This liquor is 

 drawn by cutting the tree two inches deep in the wood ; 

 the cut being made sloping to the length of ten or twelve 

 inches; at the lower end of this gash a knife is thrust 

 into the tree slopingly, so that the water runs along the 

 cut, as through a gutter, and falls upon the knife, under 

 which a vessel is placed to receive it. Some trees will 

 yield five or six bottles of this water in a day ; and some 

 inhabitants of Canada might, in one day, draw twenty 

 hogsheads, if they would thus cut all the Maple-trees 



