, granulating, and draining repeated, which will give as
pure a quality of sugar as the best refined West India article.

The greatest objections that are advanced against maple sugar are,
that the processes made use of in preparing the sugar for market are
so rude and imperfect that it is too generally acid, and besides
charged with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily
strikes a black color with tea. These objections may be removed
without any comparative difficulty, as it has been proved to
demonstration, by the application of one ounce of clear lime-water to
a gallon of maple sap, that the acidity will be completely
neutralised, and the danger of the syrup adhering to the sides of the
boiler totally removed. The acid so peculiar to the maple sugar, when
combined with lime in the above proportion, is found to be excessively
soluble in alcohol; so much so, that yellow sugar can be rendered
white in a few minutes by placing it in an inverted cone, open at the
top, with small holes at the bottom, and by pouring on the base of the
cone a quantity of alcohol. This should filtrate through until the
sugar is white; it should then be dried and re-dissolved in boiling
water, and again evaporated until it becomes dense enough to
crystallise. Then pour it into the cones again, and let it harden. By
this process a very white sample of sugar may be made, and both the
alcohol and acids will be thoroughly dispelled with the vapor.

The process of making maple sugar it will be seen is very simple and
easily performed. The trees must be of suitable size, and within a
convenient distance of the place where the operations of boiling, &c.,
are to be performed. When gathered, the sap should be boiled as early
as possible, as the quality of the sugar is in a great degree
dependent on the newness or freshness of the sap. There is a tendency
to acidity in this fluid which produces a quick effect in preventing
the making of sugar; and which, when the sap is obliged to be kept for
many hours in the reservoirs, must be counteracted by throwing into
them a few quarts of slaked lime. During the time of sugar making,
warm weather, in which the trees will not discharge their sap,
sometimes occurs, and the buckets become white and slimy, from the
souring of the little sap they contain. In this case they should be
brought to the boiler and washed out carefully with hot water, and a
handful of lime to each.

In reducing the sap,