The competent sugar maker has thoroughly cleansed all his apparatus when he put it up at the end of the season before, but many things will need a new scald. The buckets however, and spouts are usually ready for business if properly stored after a little dusting at short notice and this is most important and often saves the first run of sap, and here let me add, the competent sugar maker must be as alert and use as much care and forethought as the competent hay maker, who _cures_ hay rather than “handles it”. Afterthought does not count at sugaring except for the next season, but then again scatter brains has poor memory. Our city cousin whom we gladly greet in our homes in the “good old summer time” has lost some of the joys of the round of the country season if he has not been on hand on the morning of some fine spicy day when through the brilliant mirror-like atmosphere Mount Washington looks like the Jungfrau, standing aloft in the grand circle of the green and granite mountains of New England so reminiscent of Switzerland, and robin red breast is back to his old home sending forth cheery notes of greeting to go along with the sugar maker and his big load of buckets to the sugar bush, over a road that has been shoveled or plowed or broken through the deep snows on a thawy day ready for the event and in the early morn, while the snow crust will hold up and with plenty of helpers the buckets, perhaps a thousand or more, are hung. The men who tap the trees with the wide swing bit stock and 7-16 bit, but have the experience and adeptness to quickly select new growth timber in the old tapped tree and also to secure an upright resting place for the bucket. The spout men must never chaffer the tree into the inner bark and must not injure the spout when driving it securely in. The bucket should be properly placed and kept so at all future gatherings of sap. There is some discussion pro and con as to the convenience and necessity of covers, but they save lots of trouble in stormy weather and save much good sap that otherwise would be wasted. The coming bucket will be a large one, holding more then 20 quarts, perfectly covered, well flared for ice expansion and compression, concaved on one side to fit the tree and having in the bottom a flat, sap tight, easily worked faucet that will discharge quickly all the sap into the gathering pails without disturbing the bucket. Inventors take notice. Our city friend may take a hand at gathering and note the necessity of getting the sap from tree to evaporator quickly and holding it in as low temperature as possible to prevent acids inherent to the tree circulation getting in adverse chemical action and detrimenting the product. It is a good plan to have good, clean chunks of ice on hand to keep in storage tanks although at times it will not be required because of the low temperature prevailing. The ideal sugar weather is 25° at night and 55° during the day with damp northerly winds.