86 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



done upon land that costs nothing besides the original purchase moneys 

 without clearing, draining, or improving. 



"'In the light of these facts, are not the results most gratifying? What 

 other farm product, with so little outlay of time, kbor, and money, will pay 

 twelve per cent, on the actual value of the land?' 



"Prof. Cook's results are equally encouraging. He says: 'My bush 

 of (500 trees occupies about twenty acres. At $40 per acre this would 

 make $800. My house cost SI 50; evaporator and arch, $150; buckets, $120; 

 spouts, $20; gathering tank, $10; store-trough, $10, sled, $10; covers, $12; 

 and incidentals, $5. The interest on this at ten per cent would be $130. Add 

 to this $10 for wear and tear, and $35 for wood and labor, which is ample, 

 as the work of the farm is not pressing in these early days, and we have 

 the total cost of the manufacture as $180. Mr. Chamberlain gives the pro- 

 ceeds per tree as fifty cents. I would place it at forty cents, and when we 

 remember that a single tree has yielded six gallons of syrup, in a single 

 season, and that a whole bush has averaged two gallons to the tree for a 

 single, though exceptional, season, this seems a moderate estimate. This 

 would give us $240 from our 600 hundred trees, which is $60 above ten 

 per cent on the capital invested, and all with no risk.' 



" These are good showings, but they are not the best. A sugar-bush 

 may be considei*ed a })ermanent investment, which will continue to pay 

 larger and larger dividends from year to year. Sugar-makers have a 

 monopoly and can keep it. From the nature of the case, over-production 

 is impossible. The area of maple jn'oduction is pretty well developed, and 

 if the whole product were converted into maple syrup there would not be 

 enough to sweeten the griddle cakes of the United States for one week. 

 Fruit-raising may become unprofitable, from over-production, but there 

 will never be a surplus of maple syrup. The supp% is steadily decreasing, 

 the demand is steadily increasing. All we have to do is to make a 'gilt- 

 edge' article, and let people know we have it, to be sure of 'gilt-edge 

 prices." 



SUGAR-MAKING IN OCEANA COUNTY. 



T. S. Gurney: Sugar-making should have been a source of money-mak- 

 ing to Oceana farmers, but most of them cut oflf their maple trees in 

 fancied pursuit of wealth; but it is not yet too late to make it a source of 

 great revenue. Mr. Gurney rehearsed his early recollections of sugar- 

 making with troughs of ash, basswood, and walnut, the latter since worth 

 $100 per 1000 feet; of how they cut the tree half through in tapping it, 

 and turned the troughs up against it to wait for the next season; of the 

 iron kettles, big fire, burned sap, and the milk, eggs, pork, etc., used to 

 cleanse the dark stuff. But the processes have been revolutionized and 

 now there is scarcely anything more profitable than sugar-making to the 

 man who owns a "bush." Mr. Gurney said he had 600 or 700 trees on 

 about ten acres, the tract being worth half its value for pasture, and last 

 year, from the sugar, he got $110 net and the work was done by another 

 man "on shares." He has a good eighty-acre farm he would like to rent 

 for $100 per year, yet those ten acres yielded him more than $110. 



F. J. Russell: Twenty-five years ago every farmer made sugar. Now, 

 not one in twenty-five does so, yet we have much maple timber remaining, 

 and I conclude the industry has lapsed because it don't pay. In the south- 

 ern part of the state, sugar-making is easier work than here, because the 



