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 quantity.  The sediment is strained off and boiled down to make molasses.

The following is from a Massachusetts paper:—­

The maple produces the best sugar that we have from any plant.  Almost every one admires its taste.  It usually sells in this market (Boston) nearly twice as high as other brown sugar.  Had care been taken from the first settlement of the country to preserve the sugar maple, and proper attention been given to the cultivation of this tree, so valuable for fuel, timber, and ornament, besides the abundant yield of saccharine juice, we could now produce in New England sugar enough for our own consumption, and not be dependent on the labour of those who toil and suffer in a tropical sun for this luxury or necessary of life.  But, for want of this friendly admonition,

    “Axeman, spare that tree,”

the sturdy blows were dealt around without mercy or discretion; and the very generation that committed devastation in the first settlements in different sections of our country, generally lived to witness a scarcity of fuel; and means were resorted to for the purchase of sugar, that were far more expensive than would have been its manufacture, under a proper mode of economy in the preservation of the maple, and the production of sugar from its sap.

Those who have trees of the sugar maple, should prepare in season for making sugar.  In many localities, wood is no object, and a rude method of boiling is followed; but where fuel is very scarce, a cheap apparatus should be prepared that will require but little fuel.  In some sections, broad pans or kettles have been made of sheet-iron bottoms, and sides of plank or boards, care being taken (continued) to allow the fire to come into contact with the iron only.  These pans cost but a trifle, and, owing to their large surface, the evaporation is rapid.

Another cheap construction for boiling with economy is, to make a tight box of plank, some four or five feet square—­the width of a wide plank will answer, and then put into it, almost at the bottom, a piece of large copper funnel, say ten or twelve inches at the outer part, and then smaller.  This funnel, beginning near one end, should run back nearly to the opposite side, then turn and come put at the opposite end, or at the side near the end, as most convenient, being in only two straight parts, that the soot may be cleared out.  Each end should be made tight, with a flange nailed to the box.  At the mouth of the large part there should be a door, to reduce the draught; here make the fire, and at the other end