50 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[February, 
pan, the float closes the jaws, the jaws 
gradually bite the tube, which finally stops the 
flow of sap. But as the sap boils lower the 
jaws open again and the sap flows. The 
regulator can be set to give any required depth 
in the pan. It is, in some respects, preferable 
to the one described in my February article, 
last year. As soon as there is half an inch of 
sap in the pan a brisk fire may be started, and 
the regulator set at l’| 4 inches. After boiling 
half an hour, a few pailfuls should be drawn 
from the syrup faucet, at intervals of five 
minutes, and turned back into the pan by the 
side of the regulator. In half an hour more 
there will be thick syrup here, which may be 
run off constantly in a small stream, as long as 
the sap lasts. 
[Mr. C. specifies the advantages of his sor¬ 
ghum evaporater as follows, not claiming the 
same excellence for all.] 
1st. A greater surface is exposed directly to 
the fire by the hollow partitions. For every hor¬ 
izontal space of G inches there is a space nearly 
vertical of twice l‘| 4 inches. This would add 
nearly half to the boiling capacity, provided 
the partitions ran clear across the pan, and 
provided the heat was as great in them as on 
the flat surface of the pan. As it is, I estimate 
the gain here as about one-fifth. It is on the 
principle of the tubular boiler—viz., increasing 
the exposed surface. 
2d. The heat required to boil the sap or syrup 
at any given point is graduated to the heat ac¬ 
tually found there. This depends on the curi¬ 
ous fact, that the sweeter the sap or syrup is, 
the more easily does it boil. Now, the greatest 
heat is of course over the fire, and in burning 
four-foot wood, eleven of the fifteen feet must 
be heated by flame alone. The heat gradually 
decreases from the door of the arch to the 
chimney. Now, the cold sap enters at the hot¬ 
test place (or nearly the hottest). By the time 
it has passed two of the thirty times across the 
pan, it begins to boil. As it passes on, it grows 
sweeter and sweeter until it is syrup. With a 
good fire it boils alike the whole length of the pan, 
though the heat is unequal at all points. With 
the ordinary pans this advantage cannot be se¬ 
cured; for in all parts of an eight-foot pan, 
without ledges, the syrup is alike, aud you will 
often see it boiling furiously in one part and 
scarcely at all in another. 
3d. There is no loss of time in syruping off. 
With a constant fire, a constant stream of sap, 
about J ], inch in diameter for a fifteen-foot 
evaporator, runs in, and a constant stream of 
syrup, as large as a small slate-pencil, runs 
out. With the ordinary pans the fire must be 
greatly slackened every two or three hours, 
that the pan of syrup may be taken off and 
emptied, and filled with new sap. 
4th. The furnace doors and grates accom¬ 
panying the evaporator utilize more of the heat, 
because they hold the wood nearer the pan and 
consume it perfectly. With the simple cross¬ 
bars, described last year, a vast bed of coals and 
brands accumulates in the arch and their heat 
is wasted. This grate burns the wood to fine 
ashes, and uses all the heat. 
5th. We get better syrup and sugar, because 
the sap is not kept so long over the fire. 
Let any one boil in sap all day without syr¬ 
uping off, and he will find he has very dark- 
colored syrup. The best sugar-makers who use 
the old pans, syrup off every three hours. But 
any given pail of sap is not more than thirty 
minutes in the evaporator before it comes out a 
half-pint of syrup, as clear and white as honey. 
6th. The pan boils violently in the middle, 
and throws the scum to the cool edges. Here 
it will not boil in again as in the old pan, but 
stand and wait for the tender to remove it with 
the skimmer. Then, too, the gates are in the 
middle of the pan, and so no scum passes 
through them. 
So far as I can learn from correspondence, 
circulars, and printed letters, as well as from 
the form of spouts found there, the cover has 
not been used at all; in Vermont, certainly to 
no considerable extent. For example, one 
letter speaks of last season as “ a bad one to 
make good sugar, on account of the unusual 
amount of snow and rain which necessarily got 
mixed with the sap.” No more necessary than 
that rain should get “mixed” with hay. A 
barn roof will keep it from “ mixing,” and a 
cover, costing less than two cents, will keep it 
from “mixing” with the sap. I cannot em¬ 
phasize too strongly the advantages of using 
covers. I have seen a soft, damp snow, falling 
when the wind blew, plaster itself up and down 
the south side of the trees while the sap was 
flowing briskly; and then, as it thawed more and 
gathered thicker, suddenly slide for twenty feet 
above the bucket, carrying dirt and bits of bark 
with it, aud fill the uncovered buckets full of 
slush. And I have known some of my neigh¬ 
bors, whose buckets were uncovered, throw 
away barrels of such stuff—snow, dirt, and 
sap—or boil it with more than its worth of 
fuel, to get a black inferior syrup, while those 
who had the covers, gathered as nice a lot of 
sap as any in the season. Or if it is a rain¬ 
storm, the rain trickles down the trees, carrying 
with it dirt and stain into the sap. Syrup or 
sugar of the first quality can never be made 
from sap and rain-water. It is easier to keep 
out the dirt, insects, and rain, than to get them 
out. Then, too, a wooden cover counteracts 
the bad effects of heat and cold. The sap is not 
so liable to sour during warm days, nor to freeze 
solid in very cold nights. 
I consider hanging the bucket on the spout 
by a hole beneath its wire rim, and then covering 
it, as the greatest single invention in sugar-mak¬ 
ing. Much as I prize my new evaporator, I 
would rather give it up and go back to the pans 
than give up the covers and go back to boiling 
sap and water ! And the covers cost so little 
too. A square foot of 3 1,-inch pine, white-wood 
or poplar planed on one side is all that is needed ; 
though it may be planed on both sides and all 
edges, and painted. 
Ogden Farm Papers.—No. 14. 
It is curious to see how one thing leads to 
another when any departure is made from the 
old routine of common farming. It is a prin¬ 
ciple with ordinary farmers not to keep more 
stock than they can raise food to support. The 
first thing that “high-farming” does is to set 
aside this principle; and the liigh-farmer keeps 
all the stock he can properly shelter, and for 
which he can get money to buy food. We 
started out at Ogden Farm on this plan. Then, 
having a large stock to feed, it seemed indispen¬ 
sable to resort to steaming, in order that the ut¬ 
most good could be got from the food bought. 
Having to make steam for cooking, it was found 
cheaper to discard the "horse-power and put in 
a steam-engine. Having a steam-engine, which 
does its work in a small part of the time during 
which steam is up—for we can cut enough in 5 
hours to last a week, while we must have steam 
up about 15 hours in the week—it became a 
question how we sltould make full use of the 
apparatus during the odd times when there was 
no immediate demand for the steam. Another 
point is, that the cost of raising steam is much 
greater than the cost of keeping it up after it is 
raised; and that when the full pressure point is 
reached, it costs comparatively little to keep the 
engine at work. We found that one of the 
worst leaks was in the matter of grinding grain. 
Twenty bushels of corn are to be ground, we 
will suppose. A horse must be hitched up, and 
a man must leave his work and go half a mile 
to the windmill; a few days later he must hitch 
up again and make another trip, possibly to find 
that the grist is not ground, and that he must 
go again the next day. Then we get back, not 
the 1,120 lbs. we sent, but about 1,000 lbs.,—sup¬ 
posing we get our dues, and have no “ waste of 
the mill ” to stand. Now, it costs at least $1 (to 
say nothing of the interruption to other work) 
to send a grist to the mill and get it back; and 
on an average $2.50 for toll and waste, or 17'| 2 
cents a bushel on the corn. We feed about 40 
bushels of corn a week, which cost $7 to 
have ground at the mill, and have concluded to 
put up a portable mill (costing, with fittings, 
about $200) that will do the work in about six 
hours. Having the mill, we can get work from 
our neighbors that will probably pay profit 
enough lo balance the cost of interest, wear and 
tear, and repairs—reducing the cost of our own 
grinding to a trifle. The engineer can run the 
mill, so there will be no extra charge for attend¬ 
ance. I believe that this will complete the 
circle, and that there will be no need for further 
investments in machinery. 
I fancy I hear some old farmer saying, “ How 
about folks that haint got no engineer?” And 
the idea seems to be general, that if a farmer 
have an engine he must keep a man at a cost 
of $2.50 a day to run it. lily engineer is a farm 
apprentice, who was 15 years old when he took 
charge of the machinery. He costs no more 
than any ordinary farm boy; and he goes to 
school, milks, does chores, works in the field, 
and makes himself generally useful, like any 
other hand on the place. The engine em¬ 
ploys about one-third of his time in winter. All 
he knows about the engine is what I have 
taught him myself, and what he has learned by 
experience—what any boy with brains enough 
to work a mowing machine (which is more in¬ 
tricate than a steam-engine) can easily learn in 
a short time. As to the danger of running a 
farm engine without an experienced engineer, 
I don’t see it. It is an important point with a 
mowing machine for the driver not to step 
down in front of the cutter bar when in oper¬ 
ation, lest it cut his foot off. It is equally im¬ 
portant for an engine driver not to let the water 
get too low in his boiler lest it blow his head off. 
One of these “ accidents ” is necessarily as much 
to be feared as the other; and any boy or man 
who is fit to be trusted with any responsible 
work, is fit to be trusted with a simple farm en¬ 
gine. Iu these days no one need go far to find 
a regular engineer who will tell him and show 
him in half an hour all he needs to know about 
guarding against dangers. The only real occa¬ 
sion for professional assistance is to have the 
boiler inspected once a year. If this fact were 
more generally recognized, I think there would 
be a good many more engines in use on Ameri¬ 
can farms. 
Bearing upon the point suggested at the com¬ 
mencement of this article as distinguishing 
