e 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 sap
of the yellow and white birch, which do not give any crystallisable
sugar, but an astringent molasses.

I shall now communicate to you the process by which I manufactured
sugar maple sap, received from the Shakers of Canterbury, who
collected it with care in a clear glass demijohn, and sent it
forthwith, so that it came to me without any change of composition,
the weather being cold at the time. The evaporation was carried on
in glass vessels until the sap was reduced to about one-eighth its
original bulk, and then it was treated with a sufficient quantity of
clear lime-water to render it neutral, and the evaporation was
completed in a shallow porcelain basin. The result was, tha