OF FOREST-TkEES. 189 



Plura ejus genera. Album quod prcecipui candoris, vacatur Gallicum in cH. XIL 

 Transpadana Italia, transque Alpes nascens. Alterumgenus crispo macu- ''•^V^ 

 larum discursu : qui cum ecccellentior fuit, a similitudine caudce pavonum 

 nomen accepit. " The Maple, for the elegancy and fineness of the wood, 

 " is next to the very Citron itself There are several kinds of it, especially 

 " the White, which is wonderfully beautiful ; this is called the French 



" 2. By spontaneous evaporation. The hollow stump of a Maple sugar-tree, which had been cut 

 down in the spring, and which was found some time afterwards filled with sugar, first 

 suggested this method of obtaining sugar to our farmers. So many circumstances of cold 

 and dry weather, large and flat vessels, and, above all, so much time is necessary to obtain 

 sugar, by either of the above methods, that the most general method among our farmers is to 

 obtain it, 



"3. By boiling. For this purpose the following facts, which have been ascertained by many 

 experiments, deserve attention. First, The sooner the sap is boiled, after it is collected 

 from the tree, the better. It should never be kept longer than twenty-four hours before it is 

 put over the fire. 5econc?/z/, The larger the vessel in which the sap is boiled, the more sugar 

 is obtained from it. Thirdly, A copper vessel affords a sugar of a fairer colour than an iron 

 vessel. 



"The sap flows into wooden troughs, from which it is carried and poured into store troughs or large 

 cisterns, in theshapeofacanoeor large manger, made of white Ash, Linden, or while Pine, from 

 which it is conveyed to the kettle in which it is to be boiled. These cisterns, as well as the kettle, 

 are generally covered by a shed to defend the sap from the rain. The sugar is improved by ' 

 straining the sap through a blanket or cloth, either before or after it is half-boiled. Butter, hog's 

 Jard, or tallow, are added to the sap in the kettle to prevent its boiling oyer; and lime, eggs, or 

 new milk, are mixed with it in order to clarify it. 1 have seen clear sugar made without the addi- 

 tion of either of them. A spoonful of slacked lime, the white of one egg, and a pint of 

 new milk, are the usual proportions of these articles, which are mixed with fifteen gallons of 

 sap. In some samples which I have lately seen of Maple^sugar clarified with each of the above 

 articles, that in which milk alone was used, had an evident superiority over the others, in 

 point of colour. The sugar, after being sufficiently boiled, is grained and clayed, and after- 

 wards refined, or converted into loaf-sugar. The methods of conducting each of these pro- 

 cesses is so nearly the same with those which are used in the manufactory of West-India 

 sugar, and are so generally known, that I need not spend any time in describing them. It 

 has been a subject of inquiry, whether the Maple-sugar might not be improved in its qua- 

 lity, and increased in its quantity, by the establishment of.boiling-houses in the Sugar Maple 

 country, to be conducted by associated labour. From the scattered situation of the trees, the 

 difficulty of carrying the sap to a great distance, and from the many expenses which must 

 accrue from supporting labourers and horses in the woods, in a season of the year in which 

 Nature affords no sustenance to man or beast, I am disposed to believe that the most pro- 

 ductive method both in quantity and profit of obtaining this sugar, will be by the labour of 

 private families. For a great number of years, many hundred private families in New York 

 and Pennsylvania, have supplied themselves plentifully with this sugar during the whole 

 year. I have heard of many families who have made from two to four hundred pounds in a 

 year ; and of one man who sold six hundred pounds, all made with his own hands in one 



