EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 199 
it a little, and my small quantity would not 
flow when cool, but was as hard as half-done 
candy, I put it on again, and in a minute it 
was softened and turned to sugar. Had a dis¬ 
pute with, father about the use of my making 
this sugar when I knew it could be done, and 
might have bought sugar cheaper at Holden’s. 
He said it took me from my studies. I said I 
made it my study and felt as if I had been to 
a university. The sap dropped from each tube 
about as fast as my pulse beat, and as there 
were three tubes directed to each vessel it 
flowed at the rate of about one hundred and 
eighty drops a minute into it. One maple, 
standing immediately north of a thick white 
pine, scarcely flowed at all, while a smaller one, 
farther in the wood, ran pretty well. The south 
side of a tree bleeds first in the spring. Had a 
three quarter inch auger. Made a dozen spouts 
five or six inches long, hole as large as a pencil, 
and smoothed with one. 
March 21, 1858. P. m. To Ministerial 
Swamp, via Little River. I hear the pleasant 
phebe note of the chickadee. It is, methinks, 
more like a wilderness note than any other I 
have heard yet. It is peculiarly interesting 
that this, which is one of our winter birds also, 
should have a note with which to welcome the 
spring. 
