A “_run_” of sugar-water was not dependent upon a special act of Congress, nor was the product a subject for public revenue. It was limited, however, to frosty nights and warmer days; and when a number of consecutive days and nights remained above or below freezing, the “_sugar-water_” would cease to flow, often making it necessary to remove the “_spiles_” and freshen the auger-hole at the next run to insure the natural ability of the tree. Sugar manufactured in those days was made from the black maple or sugar tree. This tree was very productive--in an ordinary season would run ten or twelve gallons each in twenty-four hours, and during the season average enough for ten to fifteen pounds of sugar--the better trees have been known to produce over fifty pounds each in an ordinary season. This, however, was before Congress suspected a trust and combine would be a good thing for the common people or got up the Luxow investigation and whitewash of the sugar business by New York. The sugar maker knows quite well the kind of days he could obtain a run of “sugar-water,” and for that purpose one or more holes were bored into the tree three to five inches deep, and “spiles” driven in to conduct the fluid into the sugar-trough. The “spiles” that conducted the water from the tree to the trough were made from sections of elder or sumac, eight or ten inches in length, shaved down to the pith from three inches of one end, which formed the shoulder, made tapering to close the auger hole of the usual size, three-fourths of an inch. The pith in the shoulder and body of the spile was removed so as to form a channel for the sugar-water to escape. The sugar-trough was a short trough two to four feet long made of some light wood, as the white walnut, and were carefully charred on the inside or concavity to prevent the injury of the delicate flavor of the sugar. Many persons, familiar with higher mathematics and languages named in the curriculum of Yale or Harvard, as well as words and phrases used in athletic games, and manly arts of self-defense, would be turned down if asked to describe or name the uses of many very simple things to an Ohio “squirrel hunter” of three score and ten years. No doubt there are many more persons that have seen and felt the great Congressional Sugar Trust and Combine than are now living who have seen the headquarters of one of those primitive “_sugar camps_,” with its row of kettles placed over a furnace--under an open shed--parallel with and near the kettles under this shed, a reservoir made from a section of a large tulip tree, to hold the excess of gathered water during the day for night boiling--the sled and mounted barrel with, a sugar-trough funnel--the annex near the furnace to obtain light and heat, with other primitive articles or things connected with and used in the manufacture of sugar.