Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/231

 elder Grimes was busy, feeding the roaring fire with four-foot sticks, skimming the scum from the boiling sap and drawing the syrup into gallon cans at the other end. Sugar making is no job for a lazy man, even though the pan regulates the flow of the sap automatically, nor is it nowadays to be conducted without some capital. The plant is a small one, yet here, counting house, tools, tanks, pan, buckets, etc., was an investment which easily figured up a thousand dollars. The clear liquid from the trees ran in a steady stream, and the boiling sap bubbled and frothed in one end and collected in palest amber shallows in the other. Now that the run is started from eight to thirty barrels of sap a day will come to the sugar house, taxing the powers of the sugar maker to the uttermost to keep ahead of the flow. It does not do for the sap to wait. The best syrup is made from it when first collected and it will spoil if the delay before boiling is too long. Often the fires roar and the sap boils for the greater part of the twenty-four hours. It may be one or even three o'clock in the morning during a good run before the man at the pan can let his fire go out