depends on
circumstances whether it be profitable or not to the farmer. If he have
to hire hands for the work, and pay high wages, it certainly does not
answer to make it, unless on a large scale. One thing in its favour is,
that the sugar season commences at a time when little else can be done
on the farm, with the exception of chopping, the frost not being
sufficiently out of the ground to admit of crops being sown; time is,
therefore, less valuable than it is later in the spring.

Where there is a large family of children and a convenient sugar-bush on
the lot, the making of sugar and molasses is decidedly a saving; as
young children can be employed in emptying the troughs and collecting
fire-wood, the bigger ones can tend the kettles and keep up the fire
while the sap is boiling, and the wife and daughters can finish off the
sugar within-doors.

Maple-sugar sells for four-pence and six-pence per pound, and sometimes
for more. At first I did not particularly relish the flavour it gave to
tea, but after awhile I liked it far better than muscovado, and as a
sweetmeat it is to my taste delicious. I shall send you a specimen by
the first opportunity, that you may judge for yourself of its
excellence.

The weather is now very warm--oppressively so. We can scarcely endure
the heat of the cooking-stove in the kitchen. As to a fire in the
parlour there is not much need of it, as I am glad to sit at the open
door and enjoy the lake-breeze. The insects are already beginning to be
troublesome, particularly the black flies--a wicked-looking fly, with
black body and white legs and wings; you do not feel their bite for a
few minutes, but are made aware of it by a stream of blood flowing from
the wound; after a few hours the part swells and becomes extremely
painful.

These "_beasties_" chiefly delight in biting the sides of the throat,
ears, and sides of the cheek, and with me the swelling continues for
many days. The mosquitoes are also very annoying. I care more for the
noise they make even than their sting. To keep them out of the house we
light little heaps of damp chips, the smoke of which drives them away;
but this remedy is not entirely effectual, and is of itself rather an
annoyance.

This is the fishing season. Our lakes are famous for masquinonge,
salmon-trout, white fish, black bass, and many others. We often see the
lighted canoes of the fishermen pass and repass of a dark night before
our door. S------ is cons