381 
2. The larger the vessel in which the sap is boiled, the more sugar is 
obtained from it. 
8. 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 stone troughs or large cisterns in the shape of a canoe, or large manger 
made of white ash, linden, bass wood, or white pine, from which it is con¬ 
veyed 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 lard, or tallow, are added to 
the sap in the kettle to prevent its boiling over; and lime, eggs, or new milk, 
are mixed with it in order to clarify it. I have seen clear sugar made with¬ 
out the addition of either of them. A spoonful of slack 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 processes is so nearly the same with those which are used in the 
manufactory of West-Indian sugar, and are so generally known, that I need 
not spend any time in describing them. 
It has been a subject of enquiry, whether the maple sugar might not be 
improved in its quality, 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 be¬ 
lieve that the most productive method both in quantity and profit of obtain¬ 
ing 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 
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