98 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
before they arc stirred, for if it gets into the sap 
in emptying, it cannot be strained out. Indeed, 
if the road is very muddy, it is well to have a 
tight sled bottom below the barrel rack. 
About two feet from the lower end of the 
store-trough, a strainer-cloth should be tacked 
tightly to its sides and bottom by strips of lath, 
and should be stretched across the trough from 
top to bottom. The lower end of the vat is 
only half an inch lower than the upper end. 
This gives the sap argentic motion through the 
strainer, permits the fine, heavy dirt to settle, 
strains out everything at all coarse, and drains 
the trough after j r ou have stopped putting in 
sap. The lower store-trough (in the sugar- 
house) is arranged in the same way, to secure 
the greatest possible cleanliness. 
As soon as the first sled-load of sap is in the 
upper vat, and has settled for a few minutes, 
the faucets are opened and it is run down into 
the boiling-pans, and as soon as it covers the 
bottom of these, one man should commence 
boiling. The most careful and capable hand 
should take this work,—usually the owner of 
the sugar-works. The wood should be well 
crossed in the “arch,” and not permitted to 
pack down and keep the air and flame from cir¬ 
culating freely. It may pack down so that no 
heat shall reach the front pan. One should not 
be satisfied unless the sap is foaming and tum¬ 
bling all over the pans. Scum (like suds), will 
rise and float to the edges and corners, and 
should be skimmed away often. It may be saved, 
cooled, skimmed, and settled, and put into a 
barrel with half its bulk of rain-water , and a 
little vinegar or “mother.” In a year it will 
be quite good vinegar. 
If the sap is inclined to boil over, a bit of lard 
as large as a small pea, will keep it down for 
two hours, and not injure the flavor of the syrup. 
Do not split wood in the shed near the arch 
without closing the door, or the dirt and chips 
will fly into the boiling sap. 
If you have not the self-feeders (fig. 4, Feb. 
No.) you must use great care not to let the sap 
boil too low. You go out, perhaps, to help un¬ 
load, or to change buckets according to the run¬ 
ning capacity of the trees, and come back to 
find the sap boiled to syrup and just ready to 
burn. Do not, however, keep the pans too full. 
The less sap there is in a pan, other things being 
equal, the faster does it evaporate. Not merely 
a larger fraction of the quantity in the pan, but 
a greater absolute amount,—more gallons. 
It is best to “ syrup off,” often. A barrel of sap 
makes a gallon of syrup, thick enough to strain, 
cool, and settle before clarifying, which, when 
cool, will weigh 10 lbs. When you have enough 
boiled in for six or eight gallons of syrup, and 
it is boiled to about an inch deep in each pan, 
slacken the fire a little, and dip all you can safe¬ 
ly, into the front pan, and supply its place with 
as much cold sap. Boil that in the front pan 
until it will drop from the edge of the dipper 
in drops three-quarters of an inch broad. Then, 
if you have a car (fig. 5, Feb. No.), draw the 
pan up two inches and roll it to the front, away 
from the fire, lower one end two inches and dip 
or pour off the syrup at your leisure, and run it 
into a twenty-gallon cask through the strainer 
(fig. 2). If yen have no car, slacken the fire a 
little, and dip off the syrup as low as practica¬ 
ble with a flat-edged two-quart dipper (fig. 3). 
Have a pail of cold sap at hand, and when you 
have dipped as low as it is safe to do, turn in 
the cold sap. Or if you wish all the syrup out, 
dip out all but a pailful, and then two men can 
easily lift off the pan, pour out the syrup at one 
corner, turn in a pail of sap and put the pan in 
its place again. When the cask is full it should 
be removed to the dwelling house, put on a 
bench and left for twelve hours to settle. 
It is best to “ syrup off” as often as once in 
ten gallons. The syrup is better, there is less 
risk of burning, and it boils.faster if the pans 
are only partly full of syrup. 
For clarifying, a small sheet-iron pan, similar 
to those at the sugar-house, is used. It is about 
2 ft. long, l 1 ! a ft. wide, and 9 in. deep. This is 
set on top of the cooking stove, and the syrup 
filled in to the depth of two inches. If proper 
care has been taken in gathering and boiling, 
the syrup, after settling in the cask, will draw 
off as clear, and almost as light colored as 
strained honey. It is common, however, to 
clarify it with milk or beaten eggs, or both to¬ 
gether. Eggs make lighter-colored syrup, but 
injure the maple flavor; hence it is best to use 
milk. A pint of it will clarify ten gallons of 
syrup. The proper quantity of milk should be 
stirred into the syrup when it is first put over 
the stove. As soon as it begins to boil, the milk, 
with the impurities, will rise to the surface in a 
thick, dark scum. This should be skimmed off 
as often as it rises. Boil and skim until a gallon 
of the hot syrup will weigh lO'f, lfrs. The 
scales and gallon measure should be at hand, 
and every mess of syrup should be brought to 
exactly this weight. In cooling, it shrinks so 
much that a gallon when cool, weighs 11 lbs., 
and this is standard weight for maple syrup. If 
it is thicker it will turn to sugar badly. 
If you wish to make sugar, the syrup should 
boil until it “ hairs,” that is, drops from the edge 
of a dipper or spoon, and draws out into hairs 
three or four inches long. For cakes it should 
be taken off and stirred until it begins to grain 
and turn light colored, when it may be poured 
into tins of any required size and shape. For 
grained sugar, the stirring must be continued 
until the sugar is nearly dry, when it may be 
put in a cask with a perforated bottom to finish 
drying. It ought to be as dry and white as good 
“ C” coffee sugar. In general, however, it does 
not pay to make sugar, except a few pounds of 
small cakes at the first of the season for eating. 
A limited quantity early in the season will 
bring from 25 to 35 cts. per lb. Later it will 
not bring more than 18 cts., and then the syrup, 
if nice, will buy its weight of “ C” coffee sugar, 
which is better for ordinary cooking purposes. 
Nice maple syrup is far the best syrup made for 
buckwheat cakes; and at tea, with hot biscuit, 
it is better than honey. One does not tire of it 
so soon as of honey. But it must be of the beet 
quality. There is as much difference between 
syrup made as I have described, and that made 
from sap and water caught in open wooden 
buckets or troughs, and boiled in kettles hung 
between two logs by “sweeps” and chains in 
the old fashion, as there is between Cauliflower 
and Cabbage, or Delaware and fox grapes, 
and people begin to appreciate this difference. 
Prime maple syrup, made as I have described, 
now brings in Northern Ohio, from $1.50 to $2 
per gallon, according to the time of making. But 
it must be strictly first quality, and in order 
to have it thus, three things must be observed : 
First.— The sap must be kept clean. .. .Second. 
—It must be kept cool and sweet until it is boiled , 
and in order to have this,... .Third.—It must 
be gathered as soon as possible after it runs, and 
boiled as rapidly as possible. 
One can guard against sour sap in several 
ways. When cakes of ice form in the buckets 
they should not be thrown out (though there is 
little sweetness in them), for they keep the sap 
from souring as long as they remain unmelted. 
[Marcs, 
It even pays to gather a quantity of this ice to 
put into the vat if the day is warm. The most 
of the sap should be kept covered tightly in the 
outer vat. The one in the sugar-house is warm¬ 
ed by heat from the arch, and by steam from the 
boiling, and the sap will tend to sour. Again, 
after each “run,” the vats, strainers and barrels 
should be scalded. We usually have two or 
three days, sometimes a week, of freezing nights 
and warm days, when the sap runs well. Then 
it rains or snows or freezes solid for as long a 
time. The consecutive days of sap weather be¬ 
fore the storms and freezing, are termed a run. 
When there are indications that the run is over, 
barrels, vats, strainers, pails and boilers should 
be left sweet and clean. The vats and strainers 
should always be scalded. If the spiles begin 
to sour they should be brought in and thor¬ 
oughly boiled out in water in one of the pans. 
The buckets can be most conveniently scalded 
by taking a barrel of 
boiling water on the 
sled, going through the 
woods, bringing twenty 
buckets to the sled, 
scalding and returning 
them to the trees bot¬ 
tom side upwards. Two 
men in three-quarters of 
a day will scald 500 
buckets and spiles, and 
it pays over and over 
again for the work. 
Some seasons the buck¬ 
ets and spiles should be 
Tig- 4.— bucket in- scalded three times, 
VEKTEl). , . , . , 
twice during the sea¬ 
son, and once at its close. Usually, by the 
time the buckets need scalding the holes 
need reaming out, or the trees retapping. The 
reaming is done with a curved-lipped bit°| 16 - 
inch in diameter. If the trees are small and 
tapped every year it is not wise to bore a second 
hole. Reaming the old one answers the purpose. 
If the buckets are not sour, it is well to invert 
them at the last gathering of the run. The buck¬ 
et is not removed from the spile, but inverted on 
it, and left inclining from the tree at an angle of 
about 25 degrees (as in fig. 4). This drains it, 
and the frost and wind make it sweet and clean. 
Tiie cover should be laid oil a clean root, if 
placed upon the ground the dirt may freeze to it. 
The sap should be gathered as soon as 
possible after it runs, and boiled soon and 
rapidly, even if it requires night boiling. Night¬ 
boiling is not so bad as it might seem. A bunk 
is built in one corner of the sugar-house, three 
feet high, with straw-bed, pillows and buffalo- 
robe or blankets; and two men divide the night, 
one boiling while the other sleeps. You will sleep 
soundly after gathering thirty barrels of sap. 
The Profits. —The expense of fitting up a 
“camp” of 500 trees with buckets, spiles, cov¬ 
ers, vats, etc., including a decently good sugar- 
house and shed, need not much exceed $500, or 
$1 to the tree. In a favorable year, good trees 
will yield fifty cents worth of syrup, which is 
good interest. The buckets and fixtures will 
last thirty years or more, if cared for. The 
fuel of the kind I have described answers the 
purpose well, if housed, and costs little. The 
work can be performed by the usual force, and 
comes at a time when not much other profit¬ 
able work can be done, at least on a dairy farm. 
If a man lias 500 good maple trees, growing 
close together, say on six or eight acres, with 
the other trees mostly cut out, this piece of 
ground will probably net him more than any 
other of equal size on his farm. The most impor- 
