been lessened by this diet, and that its more general use would defend that class of people, who are most subject to malignant fevers, from being so often affected by them. 4. In the numerous and frequent disorders of the breast, which occur in all countries, where the body is exposed to a variable temperature of weather, sugar affords the basis of many agreeable remedies. It is useful in weaknesses, and acrid defluxions upon other parts of the body. Many facts might be adduced in favour of this assertion. I shall mention only one, which from the venerable name of the person, whose case furnished it, cannot fail of commanding attention and credit. Upon my enquiring of Dr. Franklin, at the request of a friend, about a year before he died, whether he had found any relief from the pain of the stone, from the Blackberry-Jam, of which he took large quantities, he told me that he had, but that he believed the medicinal part of the jam, resided wholly in the sugar, and as a reason for thinking so, he added, that he often found the same relief, by taking about half a pint of a syrup, prepared by boiling a little brown sugar in water, just before he went to bed, that he did from a dose of opium. It has been supposed by some of the early physicians of our country, that the sugar obtained from the maple tree, is more medicinal, than that obtained from the West-India sugar cane, but this' opinion I believe is without foundation. It is preferrable in its qualities to the West-India sugar only from its superior cleanliness. Cases may occur in which sugar may be required in medicine, or in diet, by persons who refuse to be benefited, even indirectly by the labour of slaves. In such cases, the innocent maple sugar will always be preferred*. It has been said, that sugar injures the teeth, but this opinion now has so few advocates, that it does not deserve a serious refutation. To transmit to future generations, all the advantages which have been enumerated from the maple tree, it will be necessary to protect it by law, or by a bounty upon the maple sugar, from being destroyed by the settlers in the maple country, or to transplant it from the woods, and cultivate it in the old and improved parts of the United States. An orchard consisting of 200 trees, planted upon a common farm would yield more than the same number of apple trees, at a distance from a market town. A full grown tree in the woods yields five pounds of sugar a year. If a greater exposure of a tree to the action of the sun, has the same effects upon the maple, that it has upon other trees, a larger quantity of sugar might reasonably be expected from each tree planted in an orchard. Allowing it to be only seven pounds, then 200 trees will yield 1400 pounds of sugar, and deducting 200 from the quantity, for the consumption of the family, there will remain for sale 1200 pounds which at 6-90 of a dollar per pound will yield an annual profit to the farmer * Dr. Knowles, a physician of worthy character in London, had occasion to recommend a diet to a patient, of which sugar composed a material part. His patient refused to submit to his prescription, and gave as a reason for it, that he had witnessed so much of the oppression and cruelty which were exercised upon the slaves, who made the sugar, that he had made a vow never to taste the product of their misery as long as he lived. of 80 dollars. But if it should be found that the shade of the maple does not check the growth of grain any more than it does of grass, double or treble that number of maple trees may be planted on every farm, and a profit proportioned to the above 'calculation be derived from them. Should this mode of transplanting the means of obtaining sugar be successful, it will not be a new one. The sugar cane of the West-Indies, was brought originally from the East-Indies, by the Portuguese, and cultivated at Madeira, from whence it was transplanted directly or indirectly, to all the sugar Islands of the West-Indies. It were to be wished, that the settlers upon the sugar maple lands, would spare the sugar tree in clearing their lands. On a farm of 200 acres of land, according to our former calculation, there are usually 6,000 maple trees. If only 2,000 of those original and ancient inhabitants of the woods, were suffered to remain, and each tree were to afford only five pounds of sugar, the annual profit of such a farm in sugar alone, at the price formerly mentioned, would amount to 666 dollars, 150 dollars of which would probably more than defray all the expences of making it, and allow a plentiful deduction for family use. According to the usual annual profit of a sugar maple tree, each tree is worth to a farmer, two dollars and 2-3 of a dol lar; exclusive therefore of the value of his farm, the 2,000 sugar maple trees alone confer a value upon it of 5,330 dollars and 33-90 of a dollar. It is said, that the sugar trees when deprived of the shelter and support they derive from other forest trees, are liable to be blown down, occasioned by their growing in a rich, and of course, a loose soil. To obviate this, it will only be necessary to cut off some of their branches, so as to alter its center of gravity, and to allow the high winds to have an easy passage through them. Orchards of sugar maple trees, which grow with an original exposure of all their parts to the action of the sun, will not be liable to this inconvenience. In contemplating the present opening prospects in human affairs, I am led to expect that a material share of the happiness, which Heaven seems to have prepared for a part of mankind, will be derived from the manufactory and general use of maple sugar, for the benefits which I flatter myself are to result from it, will not be confined to our own country. They will, I hope, extend themselves to the interests of humanity in the West-Indies. With this view of the subject of this letter, I cannot help contemplating a sugar maple tree with a species of affection and even veneration, for I have persuaded myself, to behold in it the happy means of rendering the commerce and slavery of our African brethren, in the sugar Islands as unnecessary, as it has always been inhuman and unjust. From, dear Sir, your sincere friend, July 10th, 1791. AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF EDWARD DRINKER, WHO DIED ON THE 17TH OF NOVEMBER, 1782, IN THE 103RD. YEAR OF HIS AGE. DWARD DRINKER was born on the 24th. of E December, 1680, in a small cabbin, near the present corner of Walnut and Second-streets, in the city of Philadelphia. His parents came from a place called Beverly, in the state of Massachusetts. The banks of the Delaware, on which the city of Philadelphia now stands, were inhabited, at the time of his birth, by Indians, and a few Swedes and Hollanders. He often talked to his companions of picking whortle berries and catching rabbits, on spots now the most improved and populous in the city. He recollected the second time William Penn came to Pennsylvania, and used to point to the place where the cabbin stood, in which he, and his friends, that accompanied him, were accommodated upon their arival. At twelve years of age, he went to Boston, where he served his apprenticeship to a cabinet maker. the year 1745, he returned to Philadelphia, with his family, where he lived until the time of his death. He was four times married, and had eighteen children, all of whom were by his first wife. At one time of his life, he sat down, at his own table, with fourteen children. Not long before his death he heard of the birth of a grand-child, to one of his grand-children, the fifth in succession to himself. In He retained all his faculties till the last year of his life. Even his memory, so early and so generally diminished by |