have a funnel to carry off the smoke.  In this case, there is only sheet copper between the fire and the sap which surrounds the funnel, so that the heat is readily taken up by the liquid, and very little escapes.  This is an economical plan for cooking food for stock, steaming timber, &c.

For catching the sap, various kinds of vessels are used.  The cheapest are made of white birch, which last one season, or less.  Troughs of pine, or linden or bass wood, may be made for a few cents each, and they will last for a number of years, if inverted in the shade of trees.  But these are inconvenient; and, after the first year, they become dirty, and clog the sap.  Pails with iron hoops are the best, and, eventually, the cheapest.  By painting and carefully preserving them, they will cost, for a course of years, about one cent each for a year.

Mr. Alfred Fitch, in the “Genesee Farmer,” says:—­

In clarifying, I use for 50 lbs. of sugar one pint of skimmed milk, put into the syrup when cold, and place it over a moderate fire until it rises, which should occupy thirty or forty minutes; then skim and boil until it will grain; after which I put it into a tub, and turn on a little cold water, and in a few days the molasses will drain out, and leave the sugar dry, light, and white.

Mr. E.W.  Clark, of Oswego, furnishes the following:—­

On Fining Maple Sugar.—­The sweet obtained from the maple tree is undoubtedly the purest known; but from mismanagement in the manufacture it frequently becomes very impure.  Its value is lessened, while the expense of making it increases.  I am sensible that the method which I shall recommend is not altogether a new one, and that it is more by attending to some apparently minute and trivial circumstances, than to any new plan, that my sugar is so good.  Much has been written upon, and many useful improvements been made in, that part of the process which relates to tapping the trees, and gathering and evaporating the sap, &c.; but still, if the final operation is not understood, there will be a deficiency in the quality of the sugar.  I shall confine myself to that part of the operation which relates to reducing the syrup to sugar, as it is of the first importance.  My process is this:—­When the syrup is reduced to the consistence of West India molasses, I set it away till it is perfectly cold, and then mix with it the clarifying matter, which is milk or eggs.  I prefer eggs to milk, because when heated the whole of it curdles; whereas milk produces only a small portion of curd.  The eggs should be thoroughly beaten and effectually mixed with the syrup while cold.  The syrup should then be heated till just before it would boil, when the curd rises, bringing with it every impurity, even the coloring matter, or a great portion of that which it had received from the smoke, kettles, buckets, or reservoirs.  The boiling should be checked, and the scum carefully