Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/736

730 making. Having obtained permission to tap twenty maples in Beechwood, we bought the outfit and went to work. The first morning we tapped the trees, the boys being taught how to select the best trees and how best to tap them. The reasons for each step were elicited or suggested, science and practise going hand in hand. It was great fun for the boys to watch the sap dropping into the cans, and to see whose cans filled first—proving their owners to have made the best choice of trees or managed the tapping best.

A couple of days later, having on hand a couple of barrels of sap or its product in syrup, we went to the woods to sugar off. First we made taffy by pouring the thick syrup on the snow. Then we boiled the rest down into sugar to take home. The boys in the illustration are enjoying the fruits of their labors in the shape of taffy.

After each of these occupations of surveying and sugar-making which I have described, and after considerable discussion of the same, the boys wrote compositions on 'Beechwood' or 'A Valuation Survey of Beechwood' and on 'The Maple' or 'Sugar-making.' A boy can write to some purpose after such an experience.

Throughout the spring the study of reviving nature was a never failing source of delight. The boys took the keenest interest in the return of the birds, the unfolding of leaf and flower, the awakening of frog and snake, squirrel, snail, butterfly and humble-bee. We set up our aquaria and vivaria afresh. We observed the birds in their busy occupations of feeding and nesting. We sketched them in their, characteristic attitudes; and learned to distinguish their varied notes and songs. We looked eagerly for the first flowers of spring, the gay hepaticas and sweet Mayflowers or trailing arbutus, and we observed