A History of Vermont's Maple Sugar Industry

Part 1

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A HISTORY OF Vermont’s Maple Sugar Industry

PUBLISHED BY VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR MAKERS’ ASSOCIATION

PURE VERMONT

Maple Maple Sugar Syrup

Home of the Sugar Maple

HISTORY OF THE MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY FROM THE INDIAN DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME.

HOW MADE AND HOW TO PROCURE THAT WHICH IS PURE AND FREE FROM ADULTERATIONS.

RECIPES FOR ITS USE IN COOKING AND MAKING CANDIES, ETC.

PUBLISHED BY THE VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR MAKERS’ ASSOCIATION, DECEMBER, 1912.

VERMONT:

HOME OF THE SUGAR MAPLE.

To the Green Mountain State belongs the honor of furnishing the Maple its safest refuge and best home. Here it grows in all its beauty and luxury of foliage. Here too, as the frosts of fall settle upon our maple forests has the painters tried to copy and place upon canvas the picture as the glossy green leaves turn to red and gold. Once it reigned supreme as King of the forests of Vermont. Thousands of acres once occupied by the sugar maple have been cleared for agriculture, and the maple like the dusky warrier has gradually been driven back to the hills.

Sugar maples have been transplanted to some extent in France, Germany, Austria and England, with a view to adding sugar making to their many lines of industries, but without satisfactory results.

Of all the trees of the forest the maple was the most valuable to the early settlers. Its wood furnished the best fuel for their greedy fireplaces. Also in the early days a considerable income was derived from the burning of charcoal, and the maple made the best of material for this. But even more than for all these purposes it lost its life in the manufacture of potash. Not alone was the settlers’ great iron kettles used for boiling down the sap of the maple into sugar, but were principally used for boiling down the lye leached from wood ashes into potash thus deriving a large income, although it resulted in the same old story of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. But alas! Not alone did the people of years gone by destroy and lay waste our maple groves. The maple worm for several years stripped our trees of their foliage, and bid fair to make sugaring a thing of the past. But worst of all at the present time are the veneer mills, which pay large prices for maple logs. And unless some means be found to induce the farmer to spare his maple grove, the maple Sugar industry of Vermont, like the Indian Brave who roamed at will beneath their shade will have passed from among us.

Well may we cherish this grand old tree and be proud of sending forth to the world an article which in its purity and delicacy of flavor is unsurpassed by any sweetness otherwise produced.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF MAPLE SUGAR.

Vermont has an enviable world wide reputation for the production of two things: men and maple sugar. The noble record of the former as given to us in history and also records of the present day are known to all. But that the latter also has a history of much interest is little known.

Along with the maize and tobacco, maple sugar had its origin among the Indians. For time unknown before the white man came to this continent the aborigines drew the sap of the maple tree and distilled therefrom a sweet syrup. The various tribes of Canada, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan all knew of this art. Where ever the white people came in contact with the Indians in a region where the maple tree grew they found them making this delicious sweet, and it was from them the white man learned the process.

The probable way in which the Indians discovered this art is contained in one of their Legends, as given by Rowland E. Robinson in the Atlantic Monthly:

“While Woksis, the mighty hunter was out one day in search of game, his diligent squaw Moqua busied herself embroidering him some moccasins. For the evening meal of her lord she boiled some moose meat in the sweet water from a maple tree just by the wigwam. Becoming interested in her work, she forgot the moose meat, and the sweet water boiled away to a thick brown syrup.”

“When Woksis returned he found such a dainty morsel ready for his supper, as he had never before tasted. The great chief eagerly devoured the viand, licked the kettle clean and then went out and told his tribe that Kose-Kus-beh, a heaven sent instructor, had taught Moqua how to make a delicious food by boiling the juice of the maple. And the discovery soon became known among all the Indians.” To get the sap the Indians with their tomahawks cut a long slanting gash in the tree, below the lower end of this gash a notch was cut to hold a chip along which the sap would flow. The sap was caught in birch bark dishes and boiled in earthen kettles. The small quantity of dark syrup thus produced was the Indians only supply of sugar. Imagine ourselves limited in this necessity of life to a little taste each spring, and we can think what a delicacy their maple sugar must have been to the Indian. We fondly anticipate the coming of this season of the year, either for pleasure or profit. How long these anticipations have existed in the hearts of men we know not, but we do know that long before the foot of white man touched the virgin soil of New England, long before the woodman’s axe echoed among our hills and valleys, the dusky race, who freely roamed the primeval forest gathered the maple sap in the primative way. It is not improbable that the young braves and dusky maidens of the tribe, had sugar parties, ate sugar upon snow and became sweet with each as do the boys and girls at sugar parties today.

The first white people to make maple sugar were the Canadians. The manufacture of maple sugar in Vermont dates back to a very early day; the first settlers like their neighbors in Canada first learned the art of making it from the Indian, who they observed notching the trees in the springtime.

For a hundred years or more the methods of production remained without material change, save the substitution of iron or copper kettles for vessels of clay or bark, and the use of better utensils. The sugar was made merely for home use; cane sugar was a luxury and often unobtainable by the pioneer farmer at any cost.

The trees were tapped with axes in the Indian way, the sap caught in wooden troughs and gathered to some central place in buckets, carried on the shoulders with a sap yoke; and if the snow was deep, snow shoes were used to travel on; the boiling was done in large iron kettles swung upon a pole in the open woods in some hollow sheltered from the wind, with no protection from the sun, rain or snow, and the numerous impurities of charcoal, ashes and leaves.

Although this was greatly in advance of the primative methods of sugar making by the Indians, the product thus secured was dark in color, strong in flavor, not altogether the flavor of the maple, and quite variable in quality. This method with slight improvements and modifications was principally used in the state until within the past 50 years; since that time great improvements have been made. But the boys and girls of today can scarcely realize the conditions incident to the sugar season even 40 or 50 years ago, nor can they fully realize the pleasures which this season brought to the young people of those times, more especially the boys. In those days it was no small matter to get ready for sugaring. Each wooden hoop on the buckets must be tightened, with new hoops to replace the broken ones. It required several days to soak the buckets and make them hold the sap. The kettle, holders and buckets must then be taken to the sugar orchard.

The boiling place must be shovelled out, and perhaps new posts set for the lug pole on which to hang the kettles. Then the big back logs must be hauled and some wood cut to start the boiling. A few new sap spouts were needed each year, and these were made from green sumac trees of proper size, and whittled to fit the auger hole; the small pith being burned out with a redhot iron. With the inch or three-fourths inch auger, one man could tap about 50 trees in a day if he did not bore more than three inches deep, which was the rule. If a new sap yoke was needed, a small basswood tree of right size was cut, and the proper length for a yoke, halved, dug out to fit the neck and shoulders, and the ends shaved to right dimensions. To make “the yoke easy and the burden light” required a good fitting sap yoke.

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