tellectual members of society, who
naturally would regret that taste, learning, and genius should be thrown
out of its proper sphere.

For myself, though I can easily enter into the feelings of the poet and
the enthusiastic lover of the wild and the wonderful of historic lore, I
can yet make myself very happy and contented in this country. If its
volume of history is yet a blank, that of Nature is open, and eloquently
marked by the finger of God; and from its pages I can extract a thousand
sources of amusement and interest whenever I take my walks in the forest
or by the borders of the lakes.

But I must now tell you of our sugar-making, in which I take rather an
active part. Our experiment was on a very limited scale, having but one
kettle, besides two iron tripods; but it was sufficient to initiate us
in the art and mystery of boiling the sap into molasses, and finally the
molasses down to sugar.

The first thing to be done in tapping the maples, is to provide little
rough troughs to catch the sap as it flows: these are merely pieces of
pine-tree, hollowed with the axe. The tapping the tree is done by
cutting a gash in the bark, or boring a hole with an auger. The former
plan, as being most readily performed, is that most usually practised. A
slightly-hollowed piece of cedar or elder is then inserted, so as to
slant downwards and direct the sap into the trough; I have even seen a
flat chip made the conductor. Ours were managed according to rule, you
may be sure. The sap runs most freely after a frosty night, followed by
a bright warm day; it should be collected during the day in a barrel or
large trough, capable of holding all that can be boiled down the same
evening; it should not stand more than twenty-four hours, as it is apt
to ferment, and will not grain well unless fresh.

My husband, with an Irish lad, began collecting the sap the last week in
March. A pole was fixed across two forked stakes, strong enough to bear
the weight of the big kettle. Their employment during the day was
emptying the troughs and chopping wood to supply the fires. In the
evening they lit the fires and began boiling down the sap.

It was a pretty and picturesque sight to see the sugar-boilers, with
their bright log-fire among the trees, now stirring up the blazing pile,
now throwing in the liquid and stirring it down with a big ladle. When
the fire grew fierce, it boiled and foamed up in the kettle, and they
had to throw in fresh sap