In the first place, I make my buckets, tubs, and kettles all perfectly clean.  I boil the sap in a potash kettle, set in an arch in such a manner that the edge of the kettle is defended all around from the fire.  I boil through the day, taking care not to have anything in the kettle that will give color to the sap, and to keep it well skimmed.  At night I leave fire enough under the kettle to boil the sap nearly or quite to syrup by the next morning.  I then take it out of the kettle, and strain it through a flannel cloth into a tub, if it is sweet enough; if not, I put it in a cauldron kettle, which I have hung on a pole in such a manner that I can swing it on or off the fire at pleasure, and boil it till it is sweet enough, and then strain it into the tub, and let it stand till the next morning.  I then take it and the syrup in the kettle, and put it altogether into the cauldron, and sugar it off.  I use, to clarify say 100 lbs. of sugar, the whites of five or six eggs well beaten, about one quart of new milk, and a spoonful of saleratus, all we’ll mixed with the syrup before it is scalding hot.  I then make a moderate fire directly under the cauldron, until the scum is all raised; then skim it off clean, taking care not to let it boil so as to rise in the kettle before I have done skimming it.  I then sugar it off, leaving it so damp that it will drain a little.  I let it remain in the kettle until it is well granulated.  I then put it into boxes made smallest at the bottom, that will hold from fifty to seventy lbs., having a thin piece of board fitted in, two or three inches above the bottom, which is bored full of small holes, to let the molasses drain through, which I keep drawn off by a tap through the bottom.  I put on the top of the sugar, in the box, a clean damp cloth; and over that, a board, well fitted in, so as to exclude the air from the sugar.  After it has done draining, or nearly so, I dissolve it, and sugar it off again; going through with the same process in clarifying and draining as before.

The following remarks from Dr. Jackson, of Boston, may be of interest to the sections of the country where maple sugar is made:—­

The northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, have dense forests of the sugar maple, and at present only very rude processes are made use of in preparing the sugar for market, so that it is too generally acid and deliquescent, besides being charged with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily strikes a black color with tea.  To remedy these difficulties was the object of my researches; while, at the same time, I was engaged in ascertaining the true composition of the sap, with a view to the theory of vegetable nutrition.

I received several gallons of freshly-drawn maple sap from Northampton, Warner, and Canterbury, and made analyses of each lot, separating the acids, salts, and the sugar.  I also analysed the