1871 .] 
49 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
small lingers have done their best to mend. While we 
are school-girls snppose wo learn to speak the language 
as well as we can, and then we shall not he mortified, 
when we are old enough to teach children ourselves, 
(or, possibly, even wise enough to serve on a Committee 
on Patching and Darning,) by having some shocking 
blunder of speech bounce out of our mouths in a way to 
make us wish ourselves deaf and dumb 1] 
A tidy bundle of clean, warm, well-mended clothing 
comes from a Boy of twelve, who says: 
“ * * * And 1 have washed and ironed each article 
that is in mother's bundle and in mine. I have always 
wanted the Agriculturist ever since I first saw it. If you 
can send it this year for what I have done I will subscribe 
next year. I picked hops enough to pay for Hearth and 
Home last year and this year, and I think I can pick 
enough more to pay for the Agriculturist after this year. 
These are my outgrown clothes. I wish I had something 
nicer and better to send you, but I have not. 
Yours Respectfully, N. G. L. 
(The Agriculturist has a word to whisper in N—-’s 
ear, too. And it is to tell him thut»one of the greatest 
scholars America has produced, picked huckleberries 
enough to buy his first book, a dictionary, and made 
himself master of twenty-eight languages before he died, 
earning every dollar which his education cost him.) 
What have we here ? Surely a pair of Sioux Indian 
leggins! And who shall send them but a dear old lady 
living away out on the Pawnee Reservation, where a 
Sioux, in his war-paint and leggins, not infrequently 
makes an unwilling legacy of both to the Pawnee who is 
always in wait for them. The children make all manner 
of fun of her for sending her homely work to the grand 
show, she says, but though she must work too hard to do 
fancy mending she doubts whether any other exhibitor 
can show more thoroughly mended garments than she. 
One can fancy the frontier cabin and the great stretch of 
prairie, and the loneliness of this white winter solitude. 
One can see the busy house-mother, in-door-hand and 
field-hand indifferently, when need calls, driven and har¬ 
ried with the endless work of a settler’s wife, but finding 
time,thank Heaven,to laugh with the children,for all that. 
—And here is an old garment patched by a motherless 
girl of fifteen, who keeps house for her father and brother 
and goes to school. And here is an envelope out of 
which a great broad ray of sunshine seemed to fall, as 
the slip came out. The slip deposeth and saith that the 
writer did patch and mend a certain pair of trousers, 
(namely, the wedding breeches of her brother-in-law) with 
the sleeve of her mother’s old broadcloth cloak; and 
furthermore, that “ I did it entirely by myself, sitting with 
my back to my mother, who was on the opposite side of 
the room, lest the patches should feel liei' influence and go 
on right of themselves /” Honest Louise 1 
But 0, see this little cloak! It was made by “just a 
poor man’s wife,” from four old pairs of pantaloons, one 
old vest, and two old coat linings! “There are sixty- 
eight pieces in it,” says the label, “ and I made it in two 
days. It has been worn three years to public school, and 
I hope it may keep some other darling warm for three 
years more.” All the way from the prairies came that 
garment, too, shining with cleanliness, and sweet with 
the brooding mother-love, stitched into frayed edges and 
thread-bare seams, that look fairer than broidered hems. 
From twenty-nine States and Territories this harvest 
@f old clothes has been reaped. Four hundred and fifty- 
three contributors are registered. Thirteen hundred and 
eleven garments are to be distributed to the poor. And 
now that the veracious scribe has discharged his office it 
only remains for the gentle moralist to fulfil his. And it 
seems to him that the actual gain to the poor in this ex¬ 
tensive wardrobe, and the actual gain to the donors in 
the improvement of their handiwork, excellent as these 
advantages are, are perhaps the least gain of this odd and 
whimsical undertaking. The real things of life are the 
invisible; are those which are reckoned in emotion and 
thought. And who shall measure the cheerful zeal, the 
genial emulation, the patient exactness, the generous 
impulses to bestow, which this Exhibition has developed.? 
What a bright excitement it has made in frontier villages, 
and quiet country places of which the great city never 
heard ! What breathless interest in five hundred homes 
will wait on the rendering of the verdict! With what 
glow of kindly human feeling are all these strangers 
brought close to one another and seated, as it were, side 
by side, before this Old Cio’ pageant! The darkest and 
narrowest and poorest home from which the meanest of 
these garments came, will be a little the brighter and 
broader and richer, both for having given a gift, and for 
forgetting the old burdens for a little while to wonder 
about a life outside its conditions. Nay, in the very glow 
. of honest vanity over her excellent handiwork shall the 
weary worker find a cordial and compensation. 
“Yes, indeed,” says the gentle moralist to himself, 
summing up the spiritual results of this queer “go.” 
“ Any scheme which brings people nearer each other in 
kindly human interest; which makes them work in the 
same wise direction ; which appeals to the best impulses 
in them; which exchanges their troubled thoughts for 
bright ones; and teaches charity and carefulness, liber¬ 
ality and prudence, all in a breath;—any scheme which 
does this is an admirable one, even if it seem to violate 
the implied injunction not to put now cloth in old gar¬ 
ments. Surely, setting new cloth of better impulses in 
our old garments of selfishness is a wise kind of patch¬ 
ing and darning. And whoever,” concludes the moral¬ 
ist, “ offers a text for my prosing, is a benefactor to his 
kind ! Therefore, blessed be. the kindly heart that de¬ 
vised this Charity, and blessed be the kindly hearts that 
responded in works. And so, as Tiny Tim observes, 
‘ God bless us every one ! ’ ” 
Maple-Sugar Making. 
BY W. J. CHAMBERLAIN, OP HUDSON, OHIO. 
Iii tlie February and March numbers of the 
Agriculturist for 1870,1 described the apparatus 
used in making maple sugar, “by the best 
sugar-makers of Northern Ohio,” and also their 
methods of making it. 
Those articles brought me many circulars 
and letters on the subject. Most of them came 
from Vermont, and from them I learn that the 
Vermont sugar-makers are in advance of us in 
some respects, and we ahead of them in others. 
Last year I recommended a wooden sap spout, 
not because I considered it a perfect thing, but 
because it was, on the whole, better than any 
metallic one I had then seen. I find four or 
five different kinds are used in Vermont, but 
only one appears to me, on the whole, prefera¬ 
ble to the wooden one (beach or maple, turned, 
bored, and notched in three places, to give a 
choice, so that the bucket may be hung level), 
which is in general use here. That one is 
Post’s “ Eureka” sap spout, improved (1870). 
See fig. 1. It is made of cast iron, galvanized 
so that it will not rust, and will last a genera¬ 
tion. Since it is metallic, it is not liable to 
sour, as wood is. It is held into the tree by 
three thin “flanges,” entering about half an 
inch, while a hemispherical surface “ hugs” 
against the outer edge of the hole. The 
“ flanges” are about as thick as the back of an 
ordinary table-knife, and so stop very few pores, 
while the hemisphere stops none at all. The 
old “elder quill,” as it was commonly sharpen¬ 
ed, stopped all the pores for the first half¬ 
inch, and these are the very ones that yield the 
most sap. These features of the Eureka (the 
flanges and the hemisphere) are patented, and 
are well worthy of a patent. Then, too, the 
hole in the Eureka by which the sap leaves the 
tree is at the very bottom of the spout, and al¬ 
most at the bottom of the auger-liole. But all 
other spouts, wooden and metallic, which enter 
the auger-hole in the tree at all, have their 
holes in their centers, and as the spout is usu¬ 
ally inclined downward, and driven in nearly 
an inch, this hole is brought above the middle of 
the auger-hole. This dams up a little sap and 
leaves it there, constantly to freeze or to sour. 
The shape of the Eureka externally, ordinari¬ 
ly prevents the sap freezing up, or if it does 
freeze, the amount is so small that it thaws in a 
few moments on the open metallic surface. 
But the spout in use here often freezes solid 
the whole length of the bore ; aud as this ice is 
surrounded by wood, a bad conductor of heat, 
it often does not thaw so that the sap can run 
until two or three hours after it would other¬ 
wise have begun to flow. The Eureka I con¬ 
sider a perfect spout , with one exception. The 
very shape of the flanges, the three edges being 
parallel, and made exactly to fit a lialf-incli 
hole, prevents our using the same spout after 
the hole is reamed or retapped. But it is 
claimed that as no sap is left in the hole to sour 
and gum up the pores, the holes will not need 
reaming as when the wooden spout is used; 
and that as no pores are stopped by the spout 
Fig. 1.— EUREKA SAP-SPOUT—IMPROVED. 
itself, you will get more sap with this spout 
without reaming than with the wooden one 
with. Aud I must say that my experience for 
one year leads me to think this is true. They 
cost a good deal, $4 per hundred, but they are 
the thing. They last a lifetime, and, on the 
whole, they are the cheapest spouts made. 
Good things always cost. Last year I used a 
hundred ; this year I have ordered a thousand. 
They are manufactured and sold by the invent¬ 
or, C. C. Post, Burlington, Vt. In the improved 
Eureka of 1870, the bucket hangs by two points 
(see figure), so that it cannot swing like a 
pendulum, and in hoo narrow notches , so that 
it cannot twist nor wabble. 
There is another metallic spout. It is 
simply a frustum of a cone, made of heavy 
tin, with a galvanized pin to hold the bucket 
on the spout. I used a hundred and fifty 
of them last year, and at first thought I 
should like them. But when there came a high 
wind, I found the pails twisted and swung and 
wabbled, until about ten out of a hundred pulled 
the spout out entirely, and sixty more were 
tipped, aud had lost their covers. 
After the sugar season began last year, 
I was induced to take a 15-foot evaporator 
on trial. My arch had to be rebuilt, and 
the sap got quite a start. The weather held 
good, too, and in four days and one night 
I had boiled and put up, ready for shipment, 
$200 worth of syrup. With my old pans, 13 
feet long in all, it would have taken four days 
and four nights , and then I should have had 
thin syrup, which must be reboiled and clari¬ 
fied at the house. And this I consider the 
chief merit of the evaporator—that it takes all 
the work out of the house, and away from the 
women of the family, while it lessens the work 
in the camp for the men. I speak within 
Fig. 2.-— EUREKA SAP-SPOUT OF 1869. 
bounds, aud from an experience of many sea¬ 
sons with good pans, and of the greater part 
of one season with an evaporator, when I say 
that it saves half of the time , labor , and fuel , and 
makes better sugar and syrup. 
The evaporator is made of heavy galvanized 
sheet iron, with pine sides. The bottom is di¬ 
vided into spaces, six inches wide, by partitions, 
hollow from beneath, to admit the flame, and 
alternately touching one side and leaving a 
space of six inches at the other, to permit the 
sap to pass through. There are also two gates. 
The pan is set on the arch, so as to project 
three inches each side. This protects the pine 
sides from the fire, and secures a partially cool 
place for the scum to stand until it can be con¬ 
veniently skimmed off. The sap enters from 
the vat by a rubber tube, through the regulator. 
The latter is tin, with a tin float, which works a 
lever. This works a pair of jaws, through which 
the rubber tube passes. As the sap rises in the 
