60 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
[COPYlilQHT SECURED.] 
A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP .— Drawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
hour. It is always best, and sometimes very 
important, to have the sap boiled rapidly. 
Once my seven hundred trees yielded seventy- 
five barrels in twenty-four hours. My wood was 
not the best; Sunday stopped our boiling, and 
Monday I had twenty-five barrels of sour sap, 
which would only make a second-class syrup. 
It is best to have three forty-gallon casks for 
gathering sap, and two twenty-gallon casks for 
syrup. It is also best to have a stone-boat for 
drawing the casks in gathering sap. It is shown 
in fig. 5, and is made much like an ordinary 
wood-shod farm sled, only the runners aiid shoes 
are eight inches wide. It has two boards run¬ 
ning parallel with the raves, fitted for holding 
the casks. There will also be needed a four- 
gallon funnel, large at the top, and made to 
fit the barrel, and not shake about; also two 
or three cone-shaped strainers, made of rather 
loose white muslin, and held open at the mouth 
by a hoop or strong wire, one foot in diameter; 
also two yards of loose muslin to tack tightly 
across the vats. Other small articles will be 
needed, such as skimmer (perforated tin, made 
square, so as to fit the corners of the pans), a 
dipper with a flat edge, large tongs and shovel, 
pails for gathering, a lantern, etc. When 
these things are prepared, you are ready for 
Tapping. —When a decided sugar-day comes, 
which is indicated by the appearance of a gen¬ 
eral thaw, late in February, or any time in 
March, it is time to be busy. Let one man load 
up two hundred buckets and two hundred 
covers at a time, in a large wagon or sled-box, 
and start out for distributing. He should be 
careful to leave the large buckets at the thrifti- 
Fig. 6.—-nUNG eight. Fig. 7. —nuxG WRONG. 
est trees. This is one advantage of having 
buckets of three sizes. Take your half-inch bit, 
set in a good bit-stock, select a sound side of 
the tree, where there are no old holes yet un¬ 
healed, and bore about two feet from the ground, 
or as low as you can without having the curve 
of the roots interfere with the hanging of the 
bucket. Bore about two inches deep, drive 
your spile firmly, hang your bucket so that the 
top of the outer edge shall be on a level with 
the bottom of the spile hole. This requires 
some care, but if the spiles are notched as di¬ 
rected, there is no difficulty. If the tree stands 
plumb, use the middle notch (see fig. 2); if it 
leans towards you, use the inside notch ; if from 
you, use the outside one. Figure 6 shows both 
buckets hung right, and fig. 7 shows both 
buckets hung in the wrong notch. If you have 
more buckets than trees, you can put two 
buckets to each large, thrifty tree. 
See that the spile is driven firmly, put the 
cover on, and go to the next tree. Tapping re¬ 
quires judgment and care. A heedless hand 
will bore holes in a poor place, and hang half 
the buckets so that they will waste sap. A 
good hand will tap thirty trees to the hour 
where the trees stand thick. Two men, one 
boring, and the other driving, hanging and cov¬ 
ering, will do more than twice as much as one. 
You must be wide-awake now, for if it is a good 
day, the trees first tapped will need gathering 
by the time you have tapped five hundred trees. 
