it a little, and my small quantity would not flow when cool, but was as hard as half-done candy, I put it on again, and in a minute it was softened and turned to sugar. Had a dispute with father about the use of my making this sugar when I knew it could be done, and might have bought sugar cheaper at Holden's. He said it took me from my studies. I said I made it my study and felt as if I had been to a university. The sap dropped from each tube about as fast as my pulse beat, and as there were three tubes directed to each vessel it flowed at the rate of about one hundred and eighty drops a minute into ifc. One maple, standing immediately north of a thick white pine, scarcely flowed at all, while a smaller one, farther in the wood, ran pretty well. The south side of a tree bleeds first in the spring. Had a three quarter inch auger. Made a dozen spouts five or six inches long, hole as large as a pencil, and smoothed with one.
March 21, 1858. p. m. To Ministerial Swamp, via Little River. I hear the pleasant phebe note of the chickadee. It is, methinks, more like a wilderness note than any other I have heard yet. It is peculiarly interesting that this, which is one of our winter birds also, should have a note with which to welcome the spring.
