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MAPLE-SUGAR 



MAPLS-SUGAR 



Gathering. — Gathering should begin each " sugar 

 day " as soon as there is a quart or more of sap in 

 each bucket. The sooner and the faster the sap is 

 boiled after it leaves the tree, the better is the 

 syrup. 



Gathering-tank and sled. — The tank is of gal- 

 vanized iron, three feet in diameter and three feet 

 deep, stands on end and holds four barrels. The 



Fig. 655. A sugar camp in Ohio, 



sled, commonly known locally as a "stone-boat 

 sled," has heavy runners six inches wide, two cross- 

 beams and two raves, and a flexible pole. The tank 

 has a two-inch galvanized-iron tube, three feet 

 long, attached by a piece of rubber hose to the bot- 

 tom of one side. In gathering, its outer end is 

 hooked up to the top of the tank to prevent leakage. 

 In emptying, it is unhooked and dropped into the 

 funnel-shaped receiver of the long three-inch tin 

 conductor, and runs the sap into the store-troughs, 

 shown in Fig. 6.55. The funnel-shaped receiver is 

 shown in Fig. 656. 



The can and sled are drawn by a team among the 

 trees in gathering. In emptying the sap, the man 

 stands facing the bucket, holds the gathering-pail 

 in his left hand, holds the bucket cover under his 

 left arm, grasps the bucket rim with his right hand, 

 revolves it on its spout as a pivot, empties it, re- 

 turns the cover (reversed), carries and empties the 

 sap into the near-by gathering-tank, and goes to 

 the next bucket or tree. Neither the cover, the 

 bucket, nor the pail should ever touch the ground, 

 nor the bucket leave its spout. It saves much time 

 and backache, and dirt in the sap. 



From the time the sap is lifted and poured into 

 the gathering-tank human muscle does not handle it 

 again. It runs down the slope (Fig. 655) through 

 an automatic float-regulator and into and through 

 the evaporator (Pig. 652), and runs as flnished 

 syrup from the chimney end of the evaporator. 



Fig. 656. The funnel-shaped receiver of the sap-conductor. 



Sugar camps are usually on rolling land, and there 

 is no trouble but great advantage in locating the 

 sugar-house on a slope. If the slope is slight, the 

 two store-troughs may be placed end to end up the 

 slope and connected by a tall siphon, and a rather 

 long conductor used from the gathering-tank to the 

 first store-trough. The essential feature is that the 

 bottom of the last store-trough shall be a little 

 higher than the top edge of the evaporator, inside 



the sugar -house. The store - troughs should be 

 wholly outside of the sugar-house, except the mere 

 end plank of the lower one, lest the heat and steam 

 inside slightly sour the sap and hurt the quality of 

 the syrup. And the store-troughs should have 

 covers, like the buckets, to protect from heat (some- 

 times cold), and to keep out rain, insects, and the 

 like. The writer prefers painted wooden store- 

 troughs to galvanized iron ones, as wood is a non- 

 conductor and excludes heat and cold, which would 

 sour or freeze the sap. 



Evaporator. — The evaporator should be of heavy 

 four-plate tin. Galvanized iron is rougher, does not 

 solder so well, and, worst of all, from the action of 

 the sap the galvanizing material, in boiling, is likely 

 to give the syrup a sort of "vanilla" flavor, foreign 

 to the real, delicate, natural maple flavor. 



After trying several sorts of pans and evapo- 

 rators for sixty years, father and son, the kind 

 the writer now uses is the kind shown in Fig. 

 652. It rests on a heavy sheet-iron " arch" or fur- 

 nace, which is lined with fire-brick for the fire-box 

 and a little back of it. The writer uses a regular 

 brick "arch" on solid foundation, with tall brick 

 chimney, and the fire-box lined with fire-brick. 

 Such an arch and chimney on solid stone and grout 

 foundation will last twenty-five years or more, and 

 does not heat the sugar-house to discomfort on 

 warm days as does the iron arch. 



Some of the advantages of this type of evapora- 

 tor are the corrugations, the siphons, and the inter- 

 changeable rear pans, shown indistinctly in the 

 bottom of the pan in Fig. 652. The corrugations 

 increase the surface exposed to the heat. The bot- 

 tom of the pan is crimped by machinery, up obliquely 

 about one and one-fourth inch, then horizontally one 

 inch, then down one and one-fourth inch obliquely, 

 then horizontally, and so on. This fully doubles the 

 bottom surface exposed to the fire, and nearly but 

 not quite doubles the boiling capacity on the prin- 

 ciple of the tubular boiler. 



Siphons in an evaporator permit the operator to 

 cut off and renew at will the flow of sap from 

 one pan or section to the next. Fig. 657 shows 

 the kind of siphon used. It is made of heavy 

 tin, with a cup soldered under and one-fourth inch 

 from the bottom of each " leg," to permit the down- 

 ward pressure of the air to hold the siphon full 

 when it is lifted from the sap and set on any level 

 surface, and returned to the sap later. It was found 

 that when the siphons, even with the return cups, 

 stood with both ends in the violently boiling sap 

 or syrup, the air from the bubbles would sometimes 

 rise in the siphon, gradually fill the horizontal part 

 and stop the flow. This endangered the burning of 

 the sap in the further pans thus cut off from the 

 sap-flow. So a tin compartment or "cup" was sol- 

 dered firmly to the outside corner of each pan at 

 the place of transfer. These cups connect with the 

 sap by openings close to the bottoms of the two 

 pans connected by each siphon. The cups rise 

 higher than the sap ever rises in the pans, so as to 

 prevent overflow. The sap or the syrup in tho 

 "cups" is always calm, not boiling, and the siphon 

 connecbion is perfectly secure. To fill the ciphon, 



