We cannot conclude this article without remarking that maple sugar of rare quality is manufactured in the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine; but as we have never visited that section of the Union in the spring we cannot, from personal observation, speak of the New England sugar camps. That the maple sugar usually offered for sale in the Boston and New York markets is chiefly brought from this section of country we know to be a fact, and it is one which forcibly illustrates the true idea of Yankee enterprise.
P. S.—Since writing the above, we have had the pleasure of reading an interesting description of _a maple sugar camp_, by the eminent ornithologist Mr. Audubon, from which we gather the following particulars, viz., that the juice of the sugar maple was to him a most refreshing and delicious beverage; that it takes ten gallons of this juice to make one pound of grained sugar; that the best of the sirup is made at the close of the sugar season; and that the sugar maple is found in abundance from Maine to Louisiana, invariably growing on rich and elevated grounds.
“I feel like one who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted.” Moore.
The iron bolted-door swings and creaks upon its hinges, and we are standing within the dilapidated walls of “the old academy.” Fifteen years have elapsed since we last stood here, a wild and happy school-boy. Then, this building was the chief attraction of a little village, which was made up of a pretty church, one old store and post-office, and a cluster of some twenty rural dwellings, situated on a broad street, canopied with venerable elms. In coming up here this afternoon, we noticed that the various woodlands on the surrounding hills were much narrowed by the farmer’s axe, and we thought of the armies of men which time is continually leveling with the earth. Near a large pool in which we were wont to bathe many years ago, now stands a railroad depot, where locomotive engines do congregate, to enjoy a brief rest from their labors. Upon the walls of the old academy there seemed to be brooding the spirit of desolation, and we approached it with a heavy heart.
What a throng of recollections is rushing upon us as our footsteps now echo in the silent and abandoned place! The past appears before us like an open and familiar volume.