WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



that any maple tree produces good sugar sap. At 

 the back of the house are half a dozen silver 

 maples. Come February we nick them to see if the 

 sap has started to run. If it has we drill holes breast 

 high on the south side of the trees, insert the four- 

 inch lengths of pipe supplied by the plumber, hang 

 up the buckets and off we go. The rest is easy. 



Silver maples are actually bigger sap producers 

 than sugar maples. The difference lies in the quan- 

 tity and flavor which is different, but not inferior 

 to the sugar maple's of the sugar content. For 

 all I know, there may be countless trees outside 

 the maple family that produce good sugar sap. 



This thing of maple sugar is analogous to the 

 hoorah over cane sugar thirty years ago. If you are 

 old enough to remember the ballyhoo that pre- 

 ceded the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act 

 of 1906 you will recall that glucose was anathema; 

 the very thought that manufacturers might use it 

 to sweeten canned and preserved foods swept 

 waves of horror and indignation across the country. 

 Unless I am mistaken it is still unlawful to intro- 

 duce it into manufactured foods unless you admit 

 it on the label. Yet what is the truth about glu- 

 cose? The truth is that before the human frame 

 can assimilate cane sugar it has to convert it into 

 glucose. 



But to return to the trees. As soon as the truth 

 about sugar maples was made known to me I 



