mple. Many beautiful articles are made by them of it, and
to the back settlers it is invaluable. As an inside roofing, it
effectually resists the rain--baskets for gathering the innumerable
tribe of summer berries, and boxes for packing butter are made of
it--calabashes for drinking are formed of it in an instant by the bright
forest stream. Many a New Brunswick belle has worn it for a head-dress
as the dames of more polished lands do frames of French willow; and it
is said the title deeds of many a broad acre in America have been
written on no other parchment than its smooth and vellum-like folds. The
sugar-maker's bark-covered hut contains his bedding and provisions,
consisting of little save the huge round loaf of bread, known as the
"shanty loaf"--his beverage, or substitute for tea, is made of the
leaves of the winter green, or the hemlock boughs which grow beside him,
and his sweetening being handy bye, he wants nothing more. A notch is
cut in the tree, from which the sap flows, and beneath it a piece of
shingle is inserted for a spout to conduct it into troughs, or bark
dishes, placed at the foot of the tree. The cold frosty nights, followed
by warm sunny days, making it run freely, clear as water, and slightly
sweet--from these troughs, or bark dishes, it is collected in pails, by
walking upon the now soft snow, by the aid of snow shoes, and poured
into barrels which stand near the boilers, ready to supply them as the
syrup boils down. When it reaches the consistence required for sugar, it
is poured into moulds of different forms. Visits to these sugar camps
are a great amusement of the young people of the neighbourhood in which
they are, who make parties for that purpose--the great treat is the
candy, made by dashing the boiling syrup on the snow, where it instantly
congeals, transparent and crisp, into sheets. At first the blazing fire
and boiling cauldron look strange, amid the solemn loneliness of the
forest, along whose stately aisles of cathedral-like grandeur the eye
may gaze for days, and see no living thing--the ear hear no sound, save
it may be the tapping of the woodpecker, or the whispering of the wind
as it sighs through the boughs, seeming to mourn with them for the time
when the white man knew them not. But these thoughts pass away when the
proprietor, with his pale intelligent face, shaded by a flapping sun hat
from the glaring snow, presses us hospitably to "take along a junk of
candy, a lump of s