The Ascent of Sap 129 



Maple sap used to be boiled down in a large 

 caldron swung gipsy-fashion over an open-air fire. 

 Warm, flickering lights played over the snow, the 

 lilac-gray trunks of the maple trees, and the busy 

 workers stirring the pot and feeding the flames. 

 But today, on many farms, a patent evaporator 

 takes the place of the gipsy kettle, and a bricked- 

 in oven does the work of the leaping fire. The 

 new way is more economical — and far less pic- 

 turesque. 



The Indians were the first makers of maple 

 sugar. Indeed, before the white man came, bring- 

 ing the sugar-cane and the honey-bee, this was 

 the richest sweet the red man knew. It came, too, 

 when the poor Indian had just gone through his 

 hungry time, the scanty fare, or perhaps the star- 

 vation, of the cold and cruel winter. 



The Iroquois used to hold a public festival 

 every spring to celebrate the tapping of the 

 maples. " It consists," says a Government report, 

 written thirty years ago, " of a war dance which 

 will, it is hoped, bring on warmer weather and 

 cause the sap to flow. At the close of the sugar 

 season, follows the maple-sugar festival, the 

 soups of which are all seasoned with the new-made 

 delicacy. This festival, in which a number of 

 dances are introduced, lasts but one day." 



Now that cane sugar can be bought so easily 

 and cheaply, even at traders' stores in the wilder- 

 ness, the Indians boil less sugar than they did, 



