i89o 
THE RURAL $£W-YORRFR. 
Business. 
HISTORY OF A MAPLE SUGAR BUSINESS. 
PROF. KUC1KNK DAVENPORT. 
When my father came to Michigan 82 years ago, ho 
found the whites making sugar very much as the Indians 
had made it. They caught the sap in wooden troughs, and 
boiled it in kettles or more frequently, in open pans set 
on logs or mud arches. The tapping was done with an ax 
or a gouge, a chip or piece of sheet-iron doing service as a 
spile to give the sap a hint as to the direction in which the 
trough lay, where all well behaved sap was supposed to 
deposit itself. At the close of the season the troughs were 
sometimes turned against the tree till the next year, but 
often they were left to be filled all summer with water, 
leaves and dirt. No attempt was made to make the sugar 
even fairly clean, and a good proportion of it would abso¬ 
lutely refuse to crystallize, so they had syrup in those days. 
Such a product had no money value in the markets, and 
no one attempted to make more thau enough for his own 
use with perhaps a little to barter at the close for groceries. 
Father had but a scanty supply of this world’s chattels. 
He was just commencing and was determined to make the 
most of every source of revenue. He had come from the 
Western Reserve in Ohio, and conceived the idea of making 
a product fit to be eaten, and of going to his old home for 
a market where it would have a money value. He was a 
mechauic and made wooden pails for use instead of the 
troughs, and soon followed with large wooden tubs for 
gathering and holding the sap, made like the brewers’ vats 
he had often made. Formerly it had been gathered in a 
“boat” dug out of a log and stored in a “gum,” which 
was ingeniously constructed after the following plan : 
A large, hollow button-wood tree was found and cut into 
suitable lengths, then the rotton wood inside the shell was 
either hewed or burned out, and theendswere boarded up. 
Such a receptacle would hold all the sap that could not 
leak out and would spoil all it held. Verily the “gum” 
was an abomination. 
On his return from one of his visits to Ohio he brought 
home 150 tin buckets, or pails, without balls, and soon 
bought enough for all his 300 trees; In the meantime he 
had enlarged his boiling apparatus to keep well up with 
the supply of sap. He saw there was money in the busi¬ 
ness and as he had all his maples in use, he looked for 
more territory. Then he made his great venture, and the 
neighbors predicted his ruin. When he commenced this 
business he was worth only $800, all told, and was in debt 
on his first 80 acres. He bought another tract of 80 acres, 
well covered with maples, made 1,000 new wooden buckets, 
and the next year tapped 1,800 trees in the spring, and 
made enough sugar the first year to pay his hired help and 
pay for his land, besides having sugar enough left for his 
own use and $31 in money. The bush was enlarged to 
1,450 trees, where it stood for many years. 
He now had large pans on stone and mud arches, and 
his works were the wonder of the country, though rude 
enough they were. The nearest he could get to a set 
of grates was a " flrestick,” which was simply the 
wettest and greenest log that could be found, rolled up to 
the end of the arch to hold up the outer end of the wood, 
and there were no smokestacks. Under this arrangement 
the fire and wind played hide-and seek together, and a 
little heat was obtained at the expense of a great deal of 
wood. Fifty cords of the best four-foot body wood were 
usually consumed in one spring. 
We combined our inventive genius to economize labor 
and improve the product. We arranged to feed the sap 
directly to the pans without dipping, and regulated the 
stream so as to obtain a constant supply. Cook’s sorghum 
evaporators, with iron fronts and grates and tall smoke¬ 
stacks, soon appeared, and the consumption of wood was 
lessened one-half and the quality of the sugar much im¬ 
proved. About this time father commenced using iron spiles 
in place of the pine, which he had made by turning them 
on a chisel set in a block. He had always tapped with a bit. 
He made a serious mistake in cutting down a portion of 
his bush for more cleared land, and for many years our 
bush has stood at 1,000 trees. For a long time we have 
used nothing but tin buckets aud Post’s malleable iron 
spiles, on which they hang. 
A few years ago we sold out all the apparatus we had 
worked so long to get together and put in the latest im¬ 
proved evaporators, with iron arches aud self-regulating 
feed. Instead of working outside in the storm, we now 
have a sugar house with shingled roof aud a matched 
iloor. Everything is inside, even to the 30 barrel galvan¬ 
ized iron storage tank. We allow no wood to touch the 
sap during all the process, eveu the evaporator being of 
tin. We now handle but 15 or 20 cords of wood, and 
looking back on the old days, we feel quite like gentlemen, 
never forgetting, however, that he that cuts down a maple 
tree kills the goose that lays the golden egg. 
As the business was begun for money, so we continued 
it. Our apparatus represents a cash outlay of about $800 
at present prices, but it cost us much more. Our income 
is about $400, though occasionally more, and our outlay for 
manufacture about $100, and over $12,000 has come into 
our exchequer from this source alone. We no longer 
make sugar to sell in the open market. The whole trade 
is in syrup, and we sell almost entirely to consumers. For 
years we have been unable to fill all our orders, and we 
refuse ev*ry call for sugar. If there is auy improvement 
still to be obtained, we want it. We are waiting only for 
inventive genius to bring out something better than we 
now have. Our label goes on every can of first quality 
syrup, aud our guarantee goes with it, and very rarely do 
we fail to please. 
Your subscription for 181)1 will be free (you now being 
a subscriber) if you send us a club of FOUR new sub¬ 
scriptions besides your own, at the club price, $1.50 each. 
An Agricultural Educator.— At the close of the col¬ 
lege year, on November 13,1 resigned the presidency of the 
Iowa Agricultural College. As the year has been the 
most prosperous in numbers and finances in the history 
of the institution, the impression was natural that I had 
some definite call to more congenial work elsewhere. The 
reasons why I resigned I can better give at some other 
time. I simply say that I have made no definite engage¬ 
ment ; that I am willing longer to do public work for agri¬ 
culture similar in general scope to that which I have been 
doing in Ohio, and more lately In Iowa, for 11 years. I 
am open, until April 1, to engagements for farmers’ insti¬ 
tute lectures, or to more permanent engagements in agrj- 
culturaLcollege and experiment station work. If no public 
work for agriculture oilers or is found by April 1, I shall 
return to my beautiful farm home and try to work out 
certain cherished experiments long deferred, as to the best 
management of clayey farms. My address until further 
notice will be Hudson, Ohio, where I shall be managing 
about three miles more of tile drainage, which will finish 
the draining of my arable land. w. I. chamberlain. 
R. N.-Y.—As director of an experiment station or teacher 
in an agricultural college, The R. N.-Y. knows of no man 
who, by education and practice, is more thoroughly fitted 
to render services of the highest value to our farm interests. 
A Washington Hop Business.—1 saw in The R. N.-Y , 
of November 22, an account of hop growing in Otsego 
County, N. Y. The following facts about the industry in 
Washington can be vouched for: “The Washington hops 
have taken a place in the markets of the world equal to 
those of England and superior to those of any other coun¬ 
try. Though it has been comparatively a few years since 
hop growing was introduced in this region, the business 
is already carried on systematically as well as extensively. 
The growers for the most part make use of the latest and 
most approved appliances for curing and drying their hops, 
and those familiar with the various hop growing regions 
of the United States predict that the day is not far distant 
when the hops of Washington will drive all others out of 
the American markets. Hop-rust and vermin are entirely 
unknown here. The hop crop of the State for 1889 is es¬ 
timated at from 36,000 to 39,000 bales. In King County, of 
which Seattle is the county seat, is located the most ex¬ 
tensive hop yard in the world. This is the Snoqualmie 
Hop Rauch, which consists of 1,500 acres of rich alluvial 
soil, 300 acres being in hops. The production of this farm 
is from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds per acre. This farm alone 
employs during the winter months about 40 men and dur¬ 
ing the remainder of the year from 75 to 1,200 men, the 
latter number being employed during the picking season.” 
FRANKLIN RIVES. 
Future Hay Prices.—A subscriber in Chautauqua 
County, N. Y., sends this question: “ Will hay be higher in 
the spring? Remember there is but little coarse fodder in 
the country. It is always best to be prudent and saving 
even in times of plenty.” 
F. Williams & Co., of this city send us the following 
note. Our own advices tend to confirm this view of the 
matter. “ We are firmly of the belief that the average 
prices for hay during the remainder of the season will not 
be auy higher thau those now prevailing, which are as 
follows: Prime 65 cents per 100 pounds. No. 1, 60 cents; No. 
2, 55 cents ; No 3, 50 cents; Clover-mixed 50 to 55 cents ; 
Shipping 45 cents. We base our opinion upon the fact that 
there is now in the country the largest supply of hay that 
has ever been seen at this time of the year, and as large 
quantities come to market by means of water transporta¬ 
tion, which will soon cease, and as so many farmers are of 
the belief that higher prices will rule next spring, it will 
be fair to presume that au accumulation will occur at that 
time; therefore a supply exceeding the demand can be ex¬ 
pected in the market from spring till the crop of 1891 comes 
forward, and prices must suffer in consequence. It is ar¬ 
gued by a good many that, owing to the shortage in corn 
aud oats and the comparatively high prices which are being 
realized for them, farmers will sell every bushel of those 
grains w'hich they have aud feed larger quantities of hay, 
but it must be remembered in this connection that a large 
surplus of the crop of hay of 1889 was left over in the coun¬ 
try, which the farmers will naturally feed; so that the 
bulk of the crop of 1S90 will be marketed.” 
IMPLEMENT NOTES. 
Spring Tug Links. —How many farmers have them ? 
How many eveu know that there is such a thing or what 
it is like ? If the makers would advertise in The Rural 
New Yorker with a small cut showing what they are, I 
thiuk farmers would be iuclined to give them a trial, and 
having once tried them a man will have every heavy 
wagon on the place fitted with them, and also get a good 
set for plowing. In fact, I think they do as much real 
good iu plowing as in any other work, for they tend to re¬ 
lieve the shoulders in the first hard work in spring, when 
moet horses “ gall,” if they ever do. f. m. c. 
Kemp Manure Spreader; Sherwood Harness.—A 
subscriber asks about both these articles. The mauure 
spreader is an excellent machine. If a man has enough 
money to buy it outright it will pay well. It is hard to 
haul. What else can you expect when it adds the work of 
three or four men to the hauling of the load ? It handles 
well rotted or fine manure better thau any other, yet it 
will handle about anything that a man can handle with a 
fork. Naturally one cannot haul as much manure in this 
spreader as can be hauled in a common wagon, because the 
horses have to spread the manure as well as haul it. A 
man who would expect horses to do both jobs as easily as 
they could do one aloue must “ want the earth.” The best 
way to flud out the terms upon which the spreaders are 
sold is to write to the makers. 
The Sherwood harness, as we have repeatedly said, is a 
good thing. Being made of steel, it will last longer thau 
leather. It can be used for auy kiud of work, but is better 
84i 
before the plow than oisi where. We have known people 
to complain that it rubbed the backs of the horses too 
much. We never found it so, and have used it 
Iron Stack Stand.—The R. N.-Y. has frequently spoken 
of the great uses for iron iu English agriculture. Iron 
sheds, roofs, fences and houses are in great demand “ over 
Iron Stack Stand. Fig. 398. 
the water.” One common device is an iron stand for hay 
stacks or ricKS, shown at Fig. 398. The short iron posts 
are driven into the ground and the open frame is placed on 
them, ready for the hay. This stand is easily transported 
from place to place, and is quite cheap and durable. 
Spraying Apparatus —The one horse spraying ma¬ 
chine shown at Fig. 399 is used at the Delaware Experi¬ 
ment Station. Our picture is reengraved from Bulletin 10. 
The device is a truck mounted on a pair of carriage wheels, 
upon which is placed a barrel holding about 50 gallons. 
This is held in place by means of a strap which surrounds 
Spraying Apparatus. Fig. 399. 
it, and Is tied in front at either trace. The barrel has a 
tight-fitting cover firmly strapped in place, and upon this 
is placed the pump. In the cover is an opening covered by 
a lid for filling. The station people say that the cheap 
iron pumps are excellent at first, but they will soon cor¬ 
rode where caustic fungicides are used. All metallic parts 
which come into contact with fuugicides should be of brass. 
A Bicycle Sulky.—T he curious vehicle shown at 
Fig. 400 was exhibited at the late horse show. It is a sort 
of combined saddle and sulky. As will be seen, the 
driver’s seat is directly over the horse. The horse is driven 
between the shafts. The traces are very short and are at¬ 
tached to the shafts about one-third of the way from the 
end. No “ records ” have yet been made with the sulky. 
It would probably embarrass a horse when first used. 
CATALOGUES, ETC., RECEIVED. 
Harlan P. Kelsey, Linville, Mitchell County, N. C. 
—A catalogue of ornamental trees, shrubs and vines of the 
Southern Alleghany Mountains. 
Solid Comfort on Wheels is the condition claimed 
for one who uses the sulky plows made by the Economist 
Plow Company of South Bend, Ind. The rider certaiuly 
is comfortable, and the horses are as “ comfortable as 
could be expected.” Prof. Sauboru’s plow trials in Utah 
amply prove that solidity is a much desired quality of 
comfort. A plowman will come as near to getting it with 
these plows as with any. 
Geo. Ertel & Co., Quincy, III., seud catalogue of the 
Victor baling presses. The place where these presses are 
made is known as the Economy Hay Press Works, the aim 
of the proprietors being not only to make and sell a press 
at a reasonable price, but to make one that will economize 
labor. The circulars and catalogue show how well they 
have succeeded in their efforts. 
