To catch the sap.

March 15

Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap. 

Mr. Chase (of the Town School), who has lived a hundred miles distant in New Hampshire, speaks of the snow-fleas as a spring phenomenon, - probably because the winter is more uniformly cold there, - and says that they think it time to stop making maple - sugar when they observe them. They get into the sap by myriads and trouble them much. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1856

The red maple of yesterday. See March 14, 1856 ("[J]ust above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely."); See also  March 16, 1856 ("The red maple sap is now about an inch deep in a quart pail."); February 21, 1857 ("Am surprised to see this afternoon a boy collecting red maple sap from some trees behind George Hubbard's. It runs freely. The earliest sap I made to flow last year was March 14th.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Red Maple Sap Flows

They get into the sap by myriads. See March 22, 1856 ("Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Flea

March 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 15 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, To catch the sap.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026