March 21, 1855. The tree-sparrow, flitting song-sparrow-like through the alders, utters a sharp metallic tcheep.
March 21, 1856. 10 a. m. To my red maple sugar camp. Found that after a pint and a half had run from a single tube after 3 p. m. yesterday afternoon, it had frozen about half an inch thick, and this morning a quarter of a pint more had run. Between 1012 and 1112 a. m. this forenoon I caught two and three quarters pints more from six tubes at the same tree, though it is completely overcast, and threatening rain,—four and one half pints in all. The sap is an agreeable drink like iced water, by chance, with a pleasant but slightly sweetish taste. I boiled it down in the afternoon, and it made one and one half ounces of sugar, without any molasses. This appears to be the average amount yielded by the sugar maple in similar circumstances, viz., on the south edge of a wood, and on a tree partly decayed, two feet in diameter. It is worth while to know that there is all this sugar in our woods, much of which might be obtained by using the refuse wood lying about, without damage to the proprietors, who use neither the sugar nor the wood. I put in saleratus and a little milk while boiling, the former to neutralize the acid, and the latter to collect the impurities in a scum. After boiling it, till I burned
