d by many old settlers it
was the best, or nearly the best, they had ever met with: which
commendation induces me to give the plan I pursued in manufacturing it.
The sap having been boiled down in the sugar-bush from about sixteen
pailsful to two, I first passed it through a thin flannel bag, after the
manner of a jelly-bag, to strain it from the first impurities, which are
great. I then passed the liquor through another thicker flannel into the
iron pot, in which I purposed boiling down the sugar, and while yet
cold, or at best but lukewarm, beat up the white of one egg to a froth,
and spread it gently over the surface of the liquor, watching the pot
carefully after the fire began to heat it, that I might not suffer the
scum to boil into the sugar. A few minutes before it comes to a boil,
the scum must be carefully removed with a skimmer, or ladle,--the former
is best. I consider that on the care taken to remove every particle of
scum depends, in a great measure, the brightness and clearness of the
sugar. The best rule I can give as to the sugaring-off, as it is termed,
is to let the liquid continue at a fast boil: only be careful to keep it
from coming over by keeping a little of the liquid in your stirring-
ladle, and when it boils up to the top, or you see it rising too fast,
throw in a little from time to time to keep it down; or if you boil on a
cooking-stove, throwing open one or all the doors will prevent boiling
over. Those that sugar-off outside the house have a wooden crane fixed
against a stump, the fire being lighted against the stump, and the
kettle suspended on the crane: by this simple contrivance, (for any
bush-boy can fix a crane of the kind,) the sugar need never rise over if
common attention be paid to the boiling; but it does require constant
watching: one idle glance may waste much of the precious fluid. I had
only a small cooking-stove to boil my sugar on, the pots of which were
thought too small, and not well shaped, so that at first my fears were
that I must relinquish the trial; but I persevered, and experience
convinces me a stove is an excellent furnace for the purpose; as you can
regulate the heat as you like.

One of the most anxious periods in the boiling I found to be when the
liquor began first to assume a yellowish frothy appearance, and cast up
so great a volume of steam from its surface as to obscure the contents
of the pot; as it may then rise over almost unperceived by the most
vigi