VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR 175 



pays, and many have even gone to the extent of 

 cutting off their groves for wood, preferring the 

 cash from the trees once for all. This, of course, 

 is killing the goose, for it greatly depreciates the 

 value of the farm. Indeed it is an axiom in the 

 Green Mountain State that a farm without a 

 sugar orchard is an unmarketable commodity. 

 For all that it is safe to say that for one reason 

 or another not half the available trees in the State 

 are tapped yearly. 



Even about Wilmington this is true. I should 

 say that there not one grove in three is being 

 worked this year. To begin with, there is the 

 investment in " sugar tools/' no light expense for 

 the man of small capital. Good sugar workers 

 are not so common as they once were, and require 

 good wages when they are to be obtained at all. 

 It is customary to pay a man fifty dollars a month 

 and his board, and his wages run whether the 

 sap does or not. A start may be made and then 

 adverse weather or the idiosyncrasies of the trees 

 may keep the gang waiting a week, or even three. 

 Even the men hired by the day get two dollars 

 to two and a half. In some years the snow is 



