When I was a boy I knew no more about a “sugar camp” than I knew of a molasses-candy fort.
THE SUGAR CAMP.
In fact I would probably have thought one as ridiculous as the other, if it had been mentioned to me.
This was because I did not live in a maple-sugar country. I had eaten maple-sugar, but I had no idea how it was made, and when I first saw a sugar-camp, out in the woods, I was both surprised and interested.
In the first place it was not a camp at all—according to my idea—for what the people at the farm-house where I was visiting, called the camp was a house—a very rough one, but still a house. I expected to find tents and big camp-fires under the trees. I found a fire, but it was in the house.
It was in February that I went out to the camp, and although there was still snow on the ground, the day was mild and pleasant.
The men were all at work when I arrived, and I wandered about, looking at everything and asking questions.
The camp was in the middle of a large grove of sugar-maple trees, and in each of the large trees a hole had been bored, and a little spout, made of a piece of elder wood, with the pith scooped out, had been inserted in each hole. Through these spouts the sap was dripping into pans and wooden troughs, placed at the foot of each tree.
As fast as these pans and troughs were filled they were taken to the house and emptied into boilers that were suspended over the fire. Here the sap boiled away at a great rate, and the men took turns in stirring it so that it should not burn.