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A wood brace with a metal bit, used to drill holes in a maple tree.
15 September 1890

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Metal containers would then be attached to the spiles. The sap from these containers was collected each day, by hand, and hauled in large tanks to the sugar camp by horses. Today, however, miles of plastic tubes run up the sides of mountains, connecting the spiles in each tree together. Gravity then draws the sap down the hill through these tubes and into large evaporators inside the sugar camp which is located at the bottom of the hill. The evaporators then boil down the sap into maple syrup in much the same way that the early settlers boiled the sap down in large cauldrons.