134 



MAPLE-SUGAR 



MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



ness with the refined sugars and syrups made from 

 sugar-cane and sugar-beets for simple sweetening 

 purposes. But for syrup as a table luxury there 

 is nothing to compare or compete with it. For a 

 strictly fancy article, in the writer's opinion, the 

 price will increase year by year because popula- 

 tion and wealth increase and the maple-groves 

 diminish, and are not beiijg much replanted, though 

 they might well be. Some twenty-five years ago 

 the writer planted about two hundred young trees 

 along the roadsides, and now they are nearly large 



i: 







Fig. 659. The making of hay, where hay is cheap; it is a wasteful method. 



enough to tap ; and, with clean turf to the edge, 

 of the stone pike, they, make a beautiful boule- 

 yard out of a common country road. 

 ' Closing up. — At the close of the season all vessels 

 ahd utensils should be scalded, washed and wiped, 

 and stored " in the dry," the buckets not "nested," 

 so that they will not rust. Then the large shed 

 should be filled with fine wood for the next season's 

 boiling. Thus stored, old rails, limbs and partly 

 rotten wood, unfit for sale, will do yery well with 

 a little sound wood. Such wood dried ten months 

 under cover makes the most rapid boiling and the 

 best quality of syrup. 



Utilizing . the product. — Nearly the entire Ohio 

 crop is made into best syrup with apparatus' much 

 like that described above, and isvsolji as a luxury 

 costing the consumer $1 to $1.40 per gallon. Per- 

 haps one-tenth of the crop is " made into "maple 

 cream," a delicious, almost white, , soft, creamy 

 candy, that sells at twenty to thirty cents per 

 pound. It is made by boiling best-grade syrup a 

 little less than it is boiled to make the hard, coarse- 

 grained cake sugar. While hot it is rapidly stirred 

 till it comes to a thick, whitish, creamy condition 

 and is poured into molds when as thick as it will 



poiir. It never becomes very hard and brittle, and 

 dissolves quickly in the mouth with a most deli- 

 cious flavor. 



MEADOWS AND PASTURES. Pigs. 659-675. 

 [See, also, article on Grasses.] 



By S. Eraser. 



Meadow is land devoted to crops which are to be 

 made into hay. The word is from the Anglo-Saxon 

 meed = meadow. Frequently land which is too low 



and wet to be 

 used for other 

 purposes is re- 

 tained as mea- 

 dow. Pasture 

 is land de- 

 voted to crops 

 which are to 

 be grazed. 

 The word is de- 

 rived through 



the old French 



— =s^;S ^^g^ -^— "^"S^Es^p from the 



liaimpastura. 

 The plants 

 most c m - 

 monly used 

 for these pur- 

 poses include 

 the clovers 

 and the true 

 grasses, and 

 plants of many 

 other species, 

 frequently 

 weeds, and all 

 are generally 

 spoken of col- 

 lectively as 

 "grass-land." 

 may be permanent or 





and the land as 



Meadows and pastures 

 temporary in duration. When permanent, the land 

 is seldom or never plowed ; when temporary, grass 

 is grown for one to four years, usually as part of 

 a rotation of crops. 



The end in view, whether meadow or pasture, 

 permanent or temporary, will materially aid in 

 deciding the seeds which should be sown on grass- 

 land. For example, in a meadow the aim is to 

 have all the plants at their best at one time, viz., 

 when they are to be cut for hay. In a pasture the 

 aim is to secure plants which will give a uniform 

 amount of feed throughout the season, from spring 

 to fall ; thus far, the advice given to secure this is 

 to sow a number of different species of plants 

 which are at their best at different times, and which 

 will survive climatic conditions. 



For temporary grass-land it is necessary to sow 

 seeds of plants that are not costly, that arrive at 

 maturity quickly ahd that give a good yield the 

 following year. On the other hand, in the case of 

 permanent grass-land, cost of seed and the time 

 taken to reach maturity are secondary to duration 

 and adaptability of the plants when established. 



