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pounds in a year; and of one man who sold six hundred pounds, all made 
with his own hands in one season.* 
Not more knowledge is necessary for making this sugar than is required 
to make soap, cyder, beer, sour-crout, &c. and yet one or all of these are 
made in most of the farm houses of the United States. The kettles and 
other utensils of a farmer’s kitchen, will serve most of the purposes of mak¬ 
ing sugar, and the time required for the labour, (if it deserves that name) is 
at a season when it is impossible for the farmer to employ himself in any 
species of agriculture. His wife and all his children above ten years of age, 
moreover, may assist him in this business, for the profit of the weakest of 
them is nearly equal to that of a man when hired for that purpose. 
A comparative view of this sugar has been frequently made with the 
sugar which is obtained from the West India sugar cane, with respect to its 
quality, price, and the possible or probable quantity that can be made of it 
in the United States, each of which I shall consider in order. 
1. The quality of this sugar is necessarily better than that which is made 
in the West-Indies. It is prepared in a season when not a single insect 
exists to feed upon it, or mix its excretions with it, and before a particle of 
dust or of the pollen of plants can float in the air. The same observation 
cannot be applied to the West-India sugar. The insects and worms which 
prey upon it, and of course mix with it, compose a page in a nomenclature 
of natural history. I shall say nothing of the hands which are employed in 
making sugar in the West-Indies, and indeed men who work for the exclusive 
benefit of others, are not under the same obligation to keep their persons 
clean while they are employed in this work, that men, women, and children 
are, who work exclusively for the benefit of themselves, and who have been 
educated in the habits of cleanliness. The superior purity of the maple 
sugar is farther proved by its leaving less sediment when dissolved in water, 
than the West-India sugar. 
* The following receipts published by William Cooper, Esq. in the Albany Gazette, fully 
establishes this fact . 
“ Received, Cooper’s Town, April 30 th, 1790, of William Cooper, sixteen pounds, for six hun¬ 
dred and forty pounds of sugar made with my own hands, without any assistance, in less than four 
weeks, besides attending to the other business of my farm, as providing fire wood, taking care of the 
cattle,” &c. John Nicholls. Witness R. Smith. 
A single family, consisting of a man and his two sons, on the maple sugar lands between the 
Delaware and Susquehannah, made eighteen hundred pounds of maple sugar in one season. 
