Part 2

These were sugaring off times, one of which came any day towards night, when the sap was gathered in, and father gave permission to take some of the sweetest boiling from the big syrup kettle, and sugar off in the little four quart kettle, which mother would kindly let us take to the boiling place for that purpose. Some live coals were raked from the big fire and the little kettle with its precious sweet was placed thereon, and carefully watched until the sugar would blow through a twig loop or lay on snow. The sugar was very dark and often contained bits of charcoal that had fallen into the big kettles in boiling, but that did not matter; it was sweet and the feast always a delightful one. The other occasion was, in a measure, a sort of state performance and generally occurred at the close of a good run of sap, with fifteen or twenty buckets of syrup on hand. Early in the morning the biggest kettle was taken from the boiling place, carefully washed and set on three large stones. It was then filled about two-thirds full of syrup and a fire started. When milk warm, six or eight quarts of milk, with half a dozen well beaten eggs were added to the syrup to “cleanse it.” Just before boiling was the skimming time, when a pailful or more of dark thick scum would be taken from the top of the syrup. About noon the boys, and oftentimes the girls also would gather around the kettle to see it boil and taste the sweet as it slowly thickened to sugar; but not until about two o’clock in the afternoon would it be thick enough to lay on snow. In sugaring off with the little kettle we did not always have as much sugar as we wanted, but when the big kettle was on, we ate grained or waxed sugar, and hot sugar and doughnuts, until we wanted no more. Only those who have had these experiences can realize the intense enjoyments of the sugar seasons of the years gone by.

Within the past 40 or 50 years, great improvements have been made along the line of sugar implements; first the crude sugar shed was built and the kettles were incased in an arch; then came the large smooth bottom pans which were considered the height of perfection. But the ever restless Yankee was not content with this. First came the heater which heated the sap before it went into the pans; next the crude form of evaporator, with wooden sides and corrugations running across the pans but no opening beneath. Then the evaporator of the present day of which there are many kinds, all of which are good and capable of converting from twenty-five to a hundred gallons of sap into syrup in an hour; this will be explained later.

The bit of small size has taken the place of the axe, tapping iron and large auger. The tin bucket with covers have placed in the background the old troughs and wooden buckets. The team and lines of piping have lightened the burden of the man with a sap yoke and snow shoes, and instead of boiling out of doors or in the old shed a comfortable, convenient plank floor sugar house is now used. Thus we see the change which has taken place along the different lines of the industry. It has worked itself into a trade or science and men make a study of it. Therefore instead of the dark colored article containing numerous flavors, the present product with the modern methods is light in color, flavored only with the aroma of the maple, and the fine qualities possessed by this article has already won for itself a reputation far beyond the limits of our state. It has already passed the point of being considered a necessity and its use is now limited to those who can afford it as a luxury; even the poorest quality the price per pound will purchase several pounds of cane sugar for home use. Thus the poor farmer cannot use it except as a delicacy. The total product of maple sugar in the United States as stated in our census is about 50,000,000 pounds. Of this Vermont is credited with about one-fourth of the entire output. We do not wish to be misunderstood; all the pure maple sugar is not of this fine quality; only the best grade which is a small percent of the amount manufactured is entitled to the high prices received. The small quantity of the so-called first class goods have led the producers to grade their product, so that we have the first, second and third grades with prices to compare with the quality; the reason of these numerous grades are several. First, the chemical changes which take place with the sap being exposed to the weather, the advance of the season and last but not least, the many sugar makers who do not take the care they should and who do not have the suitable machines and utensils for making a No. 1 article.

The ever increasing demand for pure, genuine, first class maple goods at a high price as compared to other sugars has led to the making and placing upon the market numerous imitations of our maple product, in which the poorer grade of maple sugar is used as a flavoring. These goods often bear fraudulent labels in which it is represented that they were manufactured in Vermont, though with the exception of a few pounds used as flavoring, the stuff manufactured of glucose and other compounds, never saw a maple tree in Vermont or any other state.

This is the article placed upon the market in January and February, marked “Vermont New Maple Sugar”. You may ask, how may we get this best grade of maple sugar and be sure of its purity and quality. By corresponding with any member of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association, whose names appear at the back of this booklet. Get your goods direct from the producers.

MAPLE SWEETS AND HOW TO GET THE PURE GOODS.

If Vermont is noted as being the home of any industry, that industry is the production of maple sugar and syrup, and in this booklet we will tell you something of the process of manufacture and of whom you can procure this delicious luxury in all its purity.

The producer must first have a grove of maple trees of the sugar maple variety. These groves Vermont has in abundance. They are on the hillside and in the valley; yet a grove of sugar maples that can be utilized for sugar making cannot be produced in a few years, as the tree is comparatively of slow growth and lives to a good old age. Not many trees are used for sugar making until they are 40 years old, and have a diameter of a foot or more. These are called second growth. Then there are others, two, three or even four feet in diameter; sturdy old trees that have withstood the storms of many winters. Some of the trees used for sugar making purposes have been growing since the Pilgrim Fathers landed in 1620.

Along in March of each year, the farmer begins to watch the weather for signs of spring and conditions favorable to a flow of sap. It can only be obtained for a period of a few weeks in the spring, and on certain days when the weather conditions are favorable. Snow usually lays on the ground when the sugarmaker begins his operations in the sugar camp. The first step is to break roads in the soft and thawing snow, so that the teams can get about and gather the sap. This breaking roads is often no light task as the snow oftentimes has icy crusts beneath the surface. After the oxen or horses have been over the road several times and they have become somewhat passable, the buckets are distributed one or two to a tree and the sugar maker goes about his grove tapping them by boring a hole with a bit three-eighths to one-half inch in diameter and two or three feet from the ground as the snow will permit; in this hole he drives a spout that conveys the sap to the bucket, and on which the bucket usually hangs.

When the sugar maker has finished tapping his trees he is ready for a flow of sap. Sometimes it comes at once and then again the weather may turn suddenly cold and for a week or ten days there is nothing doing in the sugar camp; meantime he can get his boiling apparatus in readiness and perhaps get a little more wood.

But spring will come sooner or later and there is bound to be a rush of sap. Then comes the busy time in the camp; the men and boys gather the sap with oxen and horses. This is usually done with a tank holding from 20 to 40 pails on a sled and drawn to the sugar house and stored in tanks from which in turn it flows to the boiling pan or evaporator; the flow from the storage tank being regulated by feeders which keeps the boiling sap in the evaporator constantly at the same level. The sap as it boils passes from one compartment to another becoming more dense and sweeter until it reaches the syruping off pan, where it is drawn off in the form of syrup. The right density can be determined by a thermometer or the skilled operator can tell by the way the syrup “leather aprons” from the edge of the dipper. If the thermometer is used a temperature of 219° F. will give a syrup that will weigh eleven pounds to the gallon net. It must be remembered, however, that the thermometers are graduated at the sea level, and as the altitude increases a lower temperature will give the same result on account of the reduced air pressure. An allowance of 1° for every 500 feet rise has been found to be about right; thus at an altitude of 1,000 feet a boiling temperature of 217°F. will give the 11 pounds syrup. Syrup is not however usually brought to the required density in the evaporating pan but is drawn off a little less than 11 pounds net, and brought to a uniform standard in larger quantities than would be possible in the evaporating pan. The fire under the boiling sap should be quick and hot, as the sooner it is reduced to syrup after it runs from the tree the better the product. As the sap begins to boil a scum of bubbles rises to the top, which must be constantly removed with a skimmer, and the man who tends the fires, skims the sap and draws off the syrup has a busy job.

When the sap has been reduced to syrup having a density of about 11 pounds to the gallon, the niter or malate of lime, sometimes called sugar sand, which is held in solution in the sap and which crystalizes or precipitates at this stage of evaporation, can be separated from the syrup. This is accomplished in two or more ways; some strain it through felt while hot and leave the syrup free of niter; others let stand in buckets or tanks until cold; then turn or draw off the clear amber syrup leaving the malate of lime at the bottom.

Nothing has as yet been said about sugaring off, but this is a process by itself and comes after we get the syrup. Anyone who has maple syrup can sugar off, as the saying is, or convert the syrup to sugar by boiling it.

In the sugar camp the sugaring off is usually done in a deep pan on a separate arch, as the boiling sugar has a tendency to boil over unless constantly watched. The size of the pan depends on the form of product to be made. If the sugar is to be put in tin pails or wood tubs it can be handled in lots of 100 pounds or more; this would require a pan 12 inches high, 2 feet wide and 4 feet long. For shipping long distances or to hot climates the sugar should be cooked down to a density of 240° to 245°F. Great care is necessary however, not to burn or scorch the sugar when cooked to so high a temperature. For ordinary purposes if the sugar is to be used soon after it is made a temperature of 235° to 238° is high enough.

When making small cakes it is better to have two or more smaller pans and have the batches of sugar done at different intervals as the color and grain of the cake sugar depend largely on the amount of stirring it gets while hot and the sooner it is stirred after it is done the better. When the sugar gets so thick that it will barely pour it is run into moulds where it soon hardens and is ready to be wrapped in waxed paper, packed in boxes and sent to market.

There is another form of sugar, and no sugar party is complete without it, that is sugar on snow or ice. Boil the syrup down a little past 230°, cool it and put on snow with the spoon. When cooled, the waxed sugar eaten with an occasional plain doughnut and now and then a pickle is a pleasure long to be remembered and a banquet fit for a King.

To be sure and get the pure goods, order direct from the producer or from the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Market, Randolph, Vt., where maple goods can be procured at any season of the year.

This market is the outgrowth of and closely connected with the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association.

The addresses of producers will be found at the back part of this booklet.

THE SUGARING OFF.

Will Carleton in Everywhere.

You’d hardly ever think it sir, That this big city now astir With every rattling noisy thing With twentieth century thought to bring, With roofs a-shuttin’ out the sky, An’ trolley-wagons skippin’ by, An’ wires a’ dodgin’ here and there, For folks to whisper through the air. An’ factories at the daylight’s gleam A-blowin’ loud their horns o’ steam, You’d hardly ever think, I say, A-reasonin’ round the usual way, That here, instead o’ things like these, Was once a grove of maple trees, An’ under yon electric lamp We used to run a sugar camp?

One star-lit night—it seems, you know, About a year or two ago, But when you come to count it square It’s fifty of ’em, I declare— We gathered on my father’s lands, ’Bout where that market wagon stands; Us younger folks each other found From wooded regions all around, An’ then with genuine laugh and smile, We sugared off in county style!

Since then, these memory hallowed spots Are fenced up into city lots; The farm is raisin’ spires and domes, Where once the maples had their homes; Big feats are given, rich and rare, Of which, I own, I have had my share, But nothin’ ever tasted quite So good, as on that star-lit night!

An’ when the sap was boilin’ there Till we could taste it in the air, We wood-land boys with hearts awhirl, Each took a cupful to his girl, An’ cuddled down with her an’ ate, With just the white snow for a plate. You see that first-class candy-shop Up yonder where them school girls stop? They’ve gathered sweet-meats there that’s worth As much as any now on earth; But they’ve got nothin’ that’s in sight Of what we ate that winter’s night.

An’ up on Woodland Avenue, A young, old lady, kind an’ true, With han’some tresses gray enough, But still on earth, an’ “up to snuff,” Will tell you, when we go that way, (If she hasn’t changed her mind today) That, though the years have brought her nigh All earthly good that cash can buy, She’d give them all for that one night, When, from the sap fire’s fadin’ light, We wandered homeward side by side, An’ kindled flames that never died, An’ felt confession’s sudden charm, An’ slowly walkin’ arm-in-arm, With no one there to laugh or scoff, Just had a private sugarin’-off.

VERMONT MAPLE SYRUP AND THE ENVIRONMENT OF MANUFACTURE.

E. WELLMAN BARNARD, Open Ridge, Springfield, Vt.