Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1877-03-07
ThE Gamily Cjrclf.


A little warm breeze crept through
Farmer Cherry's maple forest, awoke the
trees from their long, long sleep, and they
all began TO shake hands and nod toward
each other, whispering: Good! Good
Here comes the springm
Soon the warm air made them feel thirs
ty and faint; the tiny twgs complained ia
the branches; the branches told the trunks.
and the trunks carried the news down to
the roots. Maple-trccs keep all their pro-
visions in an underground cellar; so the
roots finding that, sure enough, the
ground was no longer frozen ana hard.
began TO feel about, and sent out little root
lets that gathered up the good thngs-iust
the kinds they knew maple twigs loved
est, Doesn't it seem funny that they can
tell? The naples take one kind of food,
the pines another, the birches another, and
for each the rootlets pick out just the right
kind from the same ground. AS fast as
the rootlcts gathered the food, they sent it
up to the branches-a very delicate, sweet
drink; and still they sent more and more.
the little twigs always taking the freshest,
and sending back what was left over The
branches felt very much revived us they
were fed, grew very social, and began to
tell of the pretty red dresses they would
put on before long; red for the cool spring
days, and atterward green for hot sum
mer. They were merry planning their
new wardrobes, | assure YOU; YOU could
have heard it if you had had the right
kind of ears.
Farmer Cherry came in from his barn
chores.
II say, wife, its growing warm 3!
Shouldn't wonder if the sap would run
such weather as this; guess l must tap
one tree and see.n
So Farmer Cherry took his auger and
went out into the maple orchard. 1t didn't
take him long to make Il little hole in one
of the tree trunks, and put in Il little
spout; nor was it many minutes before
drop by drop came the sap.
"Ah! that's fine" said Farmer Cherry,
and he went home in haste. The next we
saw of him, he was driving out into the
orchard with II load of one hundred and
fifty clean, bright, tin sap-buckets and one
hundred and fifty fresh little troughs.
Then, in each one Of his hundred and ff-
ty maple trees he bored hole and put
trough in it, and the bucket beneath to
catch the sap as it came dropping out,
Didn't it starve the poor branches
waiting for their food?"
Oh, no! There was enough for them
left-all they needed to keep them very
fresh and make them grow. So many,
many pailfuls ran up and down every day
that the one Farmer Cherry took would
hardly be missed.
Every morning and night for two or
three weeks, the good farmer might be
seen with his great tank, clean us clean
could be, driving around to collect the sap
that had run out. He knew that one rea-
son why maple sugar is sometimes dark
colorcd, is because the pals and tanks that
hold the sap are not washed thoroughly;
so he took great pains with his. He knew
too, that il any water gets in, the sap
must be boiled longer to make sugar of it,
and the longer it is boiled the darker it
grows, so, if he saw II storm coming, he
collected all the sap, and turned the buck
cts upside down till the rain was over
Farmer Cherry had u great iron pan.
which would hold--oh, don't dare to tell
you how many paifuls-a great, great
many; and this very large pan rested on
some stone posts about two feet from the
ground. Under this he built fire, and
into it he poured his sap, stirring it while
it boiled almost all day long. When he
drew it off, such u beautiful clear sirup |
don't believe you ever saw This he dill
two or three times each week for nearly
1 month; after that, the sap was not us
good for people to use, though just what
he little wigs needed as they grew older.
Some of his sirup the farmer put up in