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SUGAR MAPLE. 
serves, that the annual discharge from the tree, in 
improving and increasing the sap, is demonstrated 
from the superior excellence of those trees which 
have been perforated in a hundred places by a 
small wood-pecker, which feeds upon the juice. 
The sap of these trees is much sweeter to the taste 
than that which is obtained from trees which have 
not been previously wounded, and it affords more 
sugar. 
The season for tapping the trees is in February, 
March, and April, according to the weather which 
occurs in these months ; and a tree of an ordinary 
size will yield, in a good season, from twenty to 
thirty gallons of sap, from which are made from 
four to five pounds of sugar. The temperature of 
the air has such an influence on the circulation 
of the sap, that the quantity discharged from a 
wounded tree in the course of four-and-twenty 
V 
hours, will vary from five gallons to a pint, and will 
totally cease in the night if a frost should chance to 
succeed a warm day. Dr. Rush has thus described 
the manner in which the juice is collected : “ The 
perforation in the tree is made with an axe or an 
auger: the latter is preferred, from experience of its 
advantages. The auger is introduced about three 
quarters of an inch, and in an ascending direction, 
(that the sap may not be frozen in a slow current 
in the mornings or evenings,) and is afterwards 
deepened gradually to the extent of two inches. A 
spout is introduced about half an inch into the hole 
made by this auger, and projects from three to 
