ud: frequently the
most copious flow is before the snow disappears from the ground.

Some persons have a camp in their maple orchards, where large
cauldrons are set in which to boil down the sap to the consistency of
a thick syrup: others take the liquid to their houses, and there boil
down and make the sugar.

The process begins by the preparation of spouts and troughs or tubs
for the trees: the spouts or tubes are made of elder, sumach, or pine,
sharpened to fit an auger hole of about three-fourths of an inch in
diameter. The hole is bored a little upward, at the distance
horizontally of five or six inches apart, and about twenty inches from
the ground on the south or sunny side of the tree. The trough, cut
from white maple, pine, ash, or bass wood, is set directly under the
spouts, the points of which are so constructed as completely to fill
the hole in the tree, and prevent the loss of the sap at the edges,
having a small gimlet or pitch hole in the centre, through which the
entire juice discharged from the tree runs, and is all saved in the
vessels below. The distance bored into the tree is only about one-half
an inch to give the best run of sap. The method of boring is far
better for the preservation of the tree than boxing, or cutting a hole
with an axe, from the lower edge of which the juice is directed by a
spout to the trough or tub prepared to receive it. The tub should be
of ash or other wood that will communicate no vicious taste to the
liquid or sugar.

The sap is gathered daily from the trees and put in larger tubs for
the purpose of boiling down. This is done by the process of a steady
hot fire. The surface of the boiling kettle is from time to time
cleansed by a skimmer. The liquid is prevented from boiling over by
the suspension of a small piece of fat pork at the proper point. Fresh
additions of sap are made as the volume boils away. When boiled down
to a syrup, the liquor is set away in some earthen or metal vessel
till it becomes cool and settled. Again the purest part is drawn off
or poured into a kettle until the vessel is two-thirds full. By a
brisk and continual fire, the syrup is further reduced in volume to a
degree of consistence best taught by a little experience, when it is
either put into moulds to become hard as it is cooled, or stirred
until it shall be grained into sugar. The right point of time to take
it away from the fire may be ascertained by cooling and graining a
small quantit