382 FOREST PRODUCTS 



These considerations may be summarized as follows: 



1. There should be trees enough for at least 100 buckets. The 

 larger the number of buckets above this minimum the greater is the 

 profit per bucket. 



2. There should be at least from 60 to 80 trees or more per acre large 

 enough to be tapped. The individual tree should be preferably well 

 formed, with deep crowns and of good size. 



3. The trees should lie on gentle or sloping topography from which 

 the sap can be collected on a sled with little difficulty. Although trees 

 on southerly slopes run earliest in the season, there is no indication that 

 they yield more sap than trees on other exposures. 



4. Very little capital is necessary to engage in the work, as the manu- 

 facturers of equipment usually allow the growers to pay for this invest- 

 ment out of the annual profits of the business. 



Other important considerations bearing upon the financial aspects of 

 the making of syrup and sugar are: (a) No skilled labor of any kind is 

 required; the work being done by the farmer and his family and hired 

 help unless the groves are of the largest sizes. Three men can look after 

 the work of tapping the trees and gathering the sap on an orchard of 

 2000 trees or less, while it requires only one man to look after the evap- 

 orator, (b) The sugar season comes at a time of the year when the 

 regular work of the farm is least active, thus giving the men an oppor- 

 tunity to give most of their time to it. Under average conditions the 

 gathering of the sap is finished by the middle of the afternoon and one 

 man is left to complete the work of making syrup or sugar until the last 

 of the day's sap is run through the evaporator. 



SAP FLOW AND SEASON 



The flow of sap from the maple tree has not been thoroughly under- 

 stood until comparatively recent years. Many investigations have been 

 carried on by the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station which thor- 

 oughly cleared up a number of doubtful points. 



Maple sap ordinarily contains from 2 to 6 per cent of sugar with an 

 average, under all conditions, of about 3 per cent. The sap is composed 

 largely of water, and the other component part sbesides sugar are various 

 mineral ingredients such as lime, potash, iron, magnesia and certain 

 vegetable acids. 



It is the alternate freezing and thawing, peculiar to the climatic 

 conditions in the early spring throughout the Northeast, that is most 

 conducive to commercial sap flow. Moderately warm days and cold 



