A letter writer in the Albany Statesman, in giving an account of the
New York canal, says--
"I saw for the first time the famous ascersaccharinum, or sugar
maple. It grows spontaneously like all other trees of the forest,
and is a most beautiful and stately tree.--It is said that each
tree will produce from three to five pounds of sugar. An acre will
contain 30 trees, and a tree will be fit for use in 15 years, and
will probably continue so for two centuries. An orchard of ten acres
would produce annually two hogsheads and a half of sugar, which can
be made as good in all respects as the produce of the cane or the
sweet beet. I speak from ocular observation and from taste. Mon.
Le Ray, a very respectable and sensible land holder in Jefferson
county, showed me at Washington Hall, in New York, a sample of
maple sugar, which I have never seen excelled, and which was raised
on his estates in that county; and I have been told by Mr. George
Parish, a most accomplished and public spirited gentleman, from St.
Lawrence county, that the inhabitants of that region not only supply
themselves with maple sugar for domestic uses, but have a surplus
for market. A plantation of maple trees of ten acres, beside being
highly ornamental and beneficial for pasture--besides the use of
the decayed trees for fuel, and the acquisition of excellent syrup
and molasses, and a sufficiency of sugar, for family purposes, will
yield a profit of $100 to the proprietor; and these operations are
carried on in the month of March, continue but a short time, and
interfere with no other business. The forests of the north and west,
will supply the other parts of the state with the best of sugar and
molasses through the great canals."
From Scoresby's Voyages.