Davy described the process as he
observed it at Muncy:

The Maple Trees yield about 5 w of Sugar each on an average
annually, some give as much as 15 ws but these are rare. It is drawn
off in April & May by boring holes in the Tree into which Quills &
Canes are introduced to convey the Juice to a Trough placed round
the bottom of it. This juice is boiled down to Sugar & clarified
with very little trouble & is very good.[41]

Honey also existed in great quantities in the area and was used
extensively. Apparently the "sweet tooth" of the West Branch settlers
was well satisfied by the ample resources for saccharine products.

The trade and commerce of the West Branch Valley were strictly confined
to its own locale. Mountain barriers, limited transportation facilities,
and insufficient contact with the settled areas of the Province only
served to heighten the essential self-sufficiency of the Fair Play
settlers. The result was an economic independence which doubtless had
its political manifestations.[42]

Economic conditions have their political implications, but it was the
total impact of the frontier and not simply the commercial restrictions
of some outside authority which made the Fair Play settlers self-reliant
and independent "subsistence" farmers. The farmers' frontier did not
result from the impact of any particular national stock groups, for
Scotch-Irish, English, and German settlers reacted similarly. As the
most recent historian of the Scotch-Irish, the most numerical national
stock on this frontier, suggests, "authentically democratic principles,
when the Scotch-Irish exhibited them in America, were rather the result
of their experiences on colonial frontiers than the product of the
Scottish and Ulster heritage."[43] The farmers' frontier with its
characteristics of individualistic self-reliance was a product of the
frontier itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Turner, _The Frontier in American History_, p. 18.

[2] Henry Bamford Parkes, _The American Experience_ (New York, 1959), p.
44.

[3] Dunaway, _The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania_, p. 59.

[4] Paul A. W. Wallace, _Indian Paths of Pennsylvania_ (Harrisburg,
1965), pp. 66-72, includes two maps.

[5] Chester D. Clark, "Pioneer Life in the New Purchase," _The
Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings and Addresses_, VII
(1935), 18.

[6] Meginness, _Otzinachson_ (1889), p. 400.

[7] _Ibid._, p. 401.

[8] Linn,