MAPLE SYRUP AND SUGAR 391 



It should never be built in a cold, damp hollow where a poor draft will be 

 afforded the chimney. 



For a camp of 500 buckets, the house should be about 14 by 20 ft. 

 in ground plan, with 8-ft. posts, rough siding, ventilator at the ridge 

 and paper roofing. This may be constructed for from $75 to $150, 

 depending upon cost of materials and labor and method of construction. 

 This will provide nicely for a 3 by 1 2 ft. evaporator. 



For larger operations and where further refinements are justified, 

 a house with two compartments and a separate woodshed, with brick 

 or concrete paving on the floor, a well-equipped work bench and provision 

 for maintaining an even temperature and avoiding drafts are considered 

 advisable. Where sugaring-off is practiced a two-compartment house is 

 usually required. The primary requisites in the construction and oper- 

 ation of the sugar house are comparative inexpensiveness, convenience 

 and cleanliness. 



Fuel. 



Well-seasoned wood, split rather fine and prepared well in advance, 

 should be kept stacked in the woodshed adjoining the evaporator room. 

 Some makers use the old fence rails and odd pieces of wood picked up in 

 the grove. It should preferably be cut in the spring so it will have a 

 whole summer season in which to thoroughly dry out. 



It usually requires about 8 face cords of 2-ft. wood or 4 full cords (of 

 128 cu. ft. each) to evaporate the sap from about 500 buckets, or expressed 

 in other words, about 6400 gal. On many of the Vermont operations it 

 is commonly considered that it requires i cord of wood to provide suf- 

 ficient heat to make 300 lb. of sugar. For the larger evaporators, some 

 of the operators estimate that they use a full cord every day. 



The cost of cutting, hauling and ricking the fuel wood in the wood- 

 shed is usually figured at from $2.00 to $2.75 per full cord. 



Equipment and its Cost. 



Many of the smallest groves operated for home consumption still 

 use the old-fashioned methods such as wooden buckets and spouts and 

 boil down the sap in a kettle on the kitchen stove. 



The minimum number of buckets with which modern equipment is 

 used is about 40. It is doubtful, however, if such a small operation 

 would ordinarily justify the rather large initial expenditure involved. 

 For this work the following equipment is recommended : 



