SUGAR-PRODUCING PLANTS 221 



way is identical in composition and appearance to raw cane 

 sugar. The molasses remaining after several boilings and centri- 

 fugings is used in stock foods and as a source of industrial alcohol. 

 The beet tops are valuable both as a cattle food and as a fertilizer, 

 and the impurities removed from the beet juices by filtration also 

 constitute a desirable fertilizer. The great European countries — 

 Germany, Russia, and France — lead the world in production of 

 beet sugar at the present time. However, the United States 

 produces over a million tons annually, mostly in Colorado, 

 California, and Michigan. During the last twenty years, the 

 quantity of beet sugar produced has been about one-half that of 

 cane sugar, although at various times the production of beet 

 sugar has equalled or even exceeded that of the rival sugar cane. 



Although the two types of sugar discussed in the preceding 

 pages completely dominate the world's sugar markets, there are 

 several minor sources that are of sufficient interest or importance 

 to be deserving of brief mention. The maple tree is of little or no 

 commercial significance as one of the sugar producing plants of 

 the world, but maple sugar and maple syrup constitute an 

 important forest product in the region where the sugar maple is 

 best developed — New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 and the Lake States. Almost entirely confined to farm woodlands, 

 the industry is responsible for over one-half the total cash income 

 of the average Vermont farm. Although all species of maple 

 produce a sugary sap and are sometimes tapped, it is the sugar 

 maple which is the dominant tree in most of the "sugar bushes" 

 or sugar orchards found in the northeast. The production of 

 maple sugar from these trees was discovered and developed in a 

 crude fashion by the American Indians, whom the first white 

 settlers found gathering the sap from cuts in the trunk, in bark or 

 earthen vessels. The juice was concentrated by dropping hot 

 stones into it, and converted into sugar by allowing it to freeze, 

 with a resulting crystallization of the dissolved sugar. In present 

 day practice, the raw sap is gathered during the early spring by 

 hanging buckets from spouts inserted in holes bored in the 

 trunks. These holes are about one-half inch in diameter and 



