Page:Pioneersorsource02cooprich.djvu/15

 "You may laugh, cousin Elizabeth-you may laugh, madam," retorted Richard, turning himself so much in his saddle as to face the party, and making extremely dignified gestures with his whip; "but I appeal to common sense, good sense, or, what is of more importance than either, to the sense of taste, which is one of the five natural senses, whether a big loaf of sugar is not likely to contain a better illustration of a proposition, than such a lump as one of your Dutch women puts under her tongue when she drinks her tea. There are two ways of doing every thing; the right way, and the wrong way. You make sugar now, I will admit, and you may, possibly, make loaf-sugar; but I take the question to be, whether you make the best possible sugar, and into the best possible loaves."

"Thou art very right, Richard," observed Marmaduke, with a gravity in his air, that proved how much he was interested in the subject. "It is very true that we manufacture sugar, but the inquiry is quite useful to make, how much? and in what manner? I hope to live to see the day, when farms and plantations shall be devoted to this branch of business. Little is known concerning the properties of the tree itself, the source of all this wealth; how much it may be improved by cultivation, by the use of the hoe and plough."

"Hoe and plough," roared the Sheriff;—would you set a man hoeing round the root of a maple like this,"—pointing to one of those noble trees, that occur so frequently in that part of the country.—"Hoeing trees! are you mad, 'duke? This is next to hunting for coal! Poh! poh! my dear cousin, hear reason, and leave the management of the sugars-bush to me. Here is Mr. Le Quoi, he has been in the West-Indies, and seen sugar made often. Let him give an account