tM) 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



whether the Indians or the white men first discovered the 

 uses to which the sap might be put. 



The earliest reference yet discovered is of date 1684, 

 and appeared in England in the "Philosophical Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society" as "an account of a sort of 

 sugar made of the juice of the maple in Canada." "The 

 savages of Canada," it reads, "in the time that the sap 

 rises in the maple, make an incision in the tree, by which 

 it runs out; and after they have evaporated eight pounds 

 of the liquor there remains one pound as sweet and a.s 

 much sugar as that which is got out of the canes. The 

 savages here have practiced this art longer than any 

 now living among them can remember." If the proverbi- 

 ally long memory of the red man be taken into account, 

 this statement points certainly toward Indian priority 

 in the use of maple sap. 



It is true, in any event, that at an early date in our 

 observation of them, the Indians made habitual use of 

 maple sap products, as sauce, as sugar, or as beverage. 

 Said the Baron de la Hontan, in writing of his travels 

 in America in 1684-95, as an English translation of 1703 

 gives it, "The maple tree yields a sap which has a much 

 pleasanter taste than the best lemonade or cherry-water, 

 and makes the wholesomest drink in the world. This 

 liquor is drawn by cutting the tree two inches deep in the 

 wood, the cut being run sloping to the length of ten or 

 twelve inches. At the lower end of this gash, a knife 

 is thrust into the tree slopingly, so that the water run- 

 ning along the cut or gash, as through a gutter, and fall- 

 ing upon the knife that lies across the channel, runs out 

 upon the knife, which has vessels plac'd underneath to 

 receive it. Some trees will yield five or six bottles of 

 this water a day ; and some inhabitants of Canada, might 

 draw twenty hogshead of it in one day, if they would 

 thus cut and notch all the maples of their respective 

 plantations. The gash do's no harm to the tree. Of this 

 sap they make sugar and syrup which is so valuable that 

 there can't be a better remedy for fortifying the stomach. 

 Tis but few of the inhabitants that have the patience to 

 make maple-water, for as common and usual things are 

 always slighted, so there's scarce any body but children 

 that give themselves the trouble of gashing these trees." 

 According to an Algonkian legend, had it not been for 

 the interference of the immortals, we should have had 

 syrup and not thin drinkable sap direct from the tree. 

 "One day," this legend runs, "Nokomis, the grandmother 

 of Manabush, was in the forest and accidentally cut 

 the bark of a tree. Seeing that a thick syrup exuded 

 from the cut, she put her finger to the substance, and 

 upon tasting it found it to be very sweet and agreeable. 

 She then gave some of it to her grandson, Manabush, 

 who liked it very much, but thought that if the syrup 

 ran from the trees in such a state it would cause idleness 

 among the women. He then told Nokomis that in order 

 to give his aunts employment and keep them from idle- 

 ness he would dilute the thick sap. Whereupon he took 

 up a vessel of water and poured it over the tops of the 

 trees, and thus reduced the sap to its present consistency. 



This is why the women have to boil down the sap to 

 make syrup." 



The Indians knew and used two means of reducing 

 the sap to syrup. One was to freeze the sap partly, and 

 throw away the frozen portion, which was little more 

 than plain water; the other was to boil the sap down, 

 in whatever way they could devise. According to Lieu- 

 tenent-Colonel Graham, in his sketch of Vermont pub- 

 lished in 1797, "the method pursued by the Aborigines in 

 making this article was as follows : Large troughs were 

 made out of the pine tree, sufficient to contaii. a thou- 

 sand gallons or upwards ; the young Indians collected the 

 sap into these troughs, the women in the meantime (for 

 the men consider everything but war and hunting as 

 beneath their dignity) made large fires for heating the 

 stones necessary for the process ; when these were fit for 

 their purpose, they plunged them into the sap in the 

 troughs, and continued the operation till they had boiled 

 the sugar down to the consistence they wished." He 

 adds : "There are two kinds of the maple tree, from 

 which sap is taken. One, the black, or hard maple ; the 

 other the white, or soft maple ; the former makes infinite- 

 ly the best grained and best flavored sugar, and fully 

 equal in quality to the best Muscovado." 



The sugar once made, the Indians used it in a variety 

 of ways. They mixed it with melted bear's fat to make 

 a sauce to dip their roasted venison in ; they sweetened 

 their boiled corn with it ; they combined it with powdered 

 parched sweet corn to make a light ration, a few spoon- 

 fuls of which, softened with spring water, sufficed for a 

 meal on long journeys; or they used it by itself as an 

 emergency ration, thus proving themselves torerunners 

 of the "Chocolate Soldier." Certain tribes would scarce 

 ly have known how to get along without their aninatik 

 sinzipakwat (maple tree sugar). In fact, the Iroquois 

 called the Algonkians ratirontaks -"tree-eaters" because 

 of their dependence on maple sugar. 



Had there been a shortage of white sugar in colonial 

 days, the Hoover of that time would have had no diffi- 

 culty in finding a way out. Even now, there is no reason 

 why the sugar maple should not bear a loyal share in 

 food conservation. 



The Indiana State Board of Forestry has issued a 

 bulletin urging an increased output. This bulletin says : 

 The high price of sugar and the necessary conservation 

 of the supply are sufficient reasons for us to make as 

 much' maple sugar and syrup this year as possible. In 

 1900 Indiana produced 179,576 gallons of maple syrup, 

 while Ohio produced five times as much. In 1910 In- 

 diana produced '273,728 gallons and 33,419 pounds of 

 sugar, the equivalent of 850,000 pounds of sugar. There 

 are reasons to believe that Indiana could easily double 

 her output, which means a production of a million and a 

 half pounds of sugar, if the owners of small numbers of 

 trees would tap them. The statistics available give the 

 average production of sap as 20 gallons per tree, and it 

 takes about 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. 

 It is to be remembered that the flow of sap and the sugar 



