To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Rush, 26 January 1792
From Benjamin Rush
January 26. 1792.
Dear Sir
I enclose you a few copies of the tract on the manufactory of Maple Sugar. It owes its existence to your request. It therefore has a right to claim your Support under all the congenial infirmities it derived from the hand of Dr. Sir yours very Affectionately,
Benjn. Rush
RC (NjP); endorsed by TJ as received 27 Jan. 1792 and so recorded in SJL.
The work enclosed by Rush was his An account of the Sugar-Maple Tree, of the United States, and of the methods of obtaining sugar from it, together with observations upon the advantages both public and private of this sugar (Philadelphia, 1792). See No. 677. This pamphlet, which is written in the form of a letter to TJ, was first read before the American Philosophical Society on 19 Aug. 1791 (Am. Phil. Soc., Trans., iii [1793], 6479). For a discussion of TJ’s hope that the domestic production of maple sugar would eventually lessen American dependence on sugar from the British West Indies, see note to TJ to Washington, 1 May 1791.