Ette RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
257 
Making Maple Products 
A Popuijut Sweet. —There is no food 
today more truly American than the de¬ 
licious products of the maple tree. They 
are deservedly popular with a people noted 
for having a “sweet tooth,” for their 
excellence of flavor and freedom from 
harmful qualities are sufficient to place 
a high premium upon them as a sweet. 
It is a matter to be deplored that the 
industry has long been on the decline. 
For 50 years the number of maple, trees' 
has been rapidly lessening, so many have, 
been sacrificed for lumber, for use in 
furniture making and flooring, and even 
for fuel. The making of syrup or sugar 
calls for large quantities of fuel for 
evaporating purposes, and this alone has 
cut down production of these sweets in 
all but the heavily wooded sections. In 
Central New York the makers have 
learned to use soft coal combined with 
thicker syrup four to 10 times as fast as 
the old caldron kettle method. It con¬ 
sists of a series of shallow pans, with a 
very hot fire underneath. The cold sap 
is usually fed by gravity into the pan or 
compartment nearest the front or firing 
end of the furnace. Then as it boils it is 
fed automatically into the pans farther 
back, each one containing a liquid of k 
little heavier density. Clean sap is water 
white, and pure syrup in theory should 
be so. But more or less oaramelization 
occurs around the edges of the pans as 
it boils, and this gives a clear amber 
color to the liquid. In the old caldron 
kettle this quality was too pronounced, 
giving too much color and foreign flavor 
to be desirable. 
Tapping the Trees. —The sap begins 
to run with the first w-arin days of Spring, 
usually early in March in Central New 
Washing the Sap Buckets 
wood. This gives a fiercer heat, and con¬ 
serves the wood supply, which is often 
scant. Wood for the necessary fuel for 
sugar-making is long—three to five or six 
feet in length. This permits the use of 
old fence posts, limb wood and other 
waste. But it absolutely must be secured 
and dried in advance, say during the pre¬ 
ceding Summer or Fall, and then stored 
where it will be handy to use and pro¬ 
tected from rain or snow. 
The Sugar Camp. —Most sugar makers 
have a camp, or rather a boiling house 
for the evaporation of the sap which 
makes the syrup. This must have a good 
roof, with very free ventilation in the 
center for the escape of steam. It is 
usually made of rough boards with cracks 
between to allow of further escape of 
steam. The old method of boiling down 
York. This Winter has been so mild, 
with so much sunny weather, that the 
sap has run quite freely at times, even 
in December and January. But as the 
weather is too uncertain at this time of 
year few tree*< were tapped, excepting 
here and there one for the novelty of the 
thing. The most desirable buckets are 
of tin or galvanized iron, the former 
usually being painted white inside to pre¬ 
vent rust. Frequently wooden buckets 
are still seen. When properly cared for 
and kept well painted these make fully 
as good a product. Indeed, the farmer 
who won the first premium on a display 
of maple products at the New York State 
Fair this year used wooden buckets 
largely, and he says he considers the sap 
taken from these fully as clean and pure 
in quality as from the best of metal 
Modern Sap Evaporator in Operation 
sap in the open allowed the sun to shine 
on the storage tubs and increase fermen¬ 
tation or bacterial action, and the wind 
blew more or less foreign matter into the 
open pans. This caused the dark color 
and strong flavor that so many city 
buyers today think a necessary quality 
of maple sugar or syrup if it is the pure 
tiling. Modern methods carry cleanliness 
to the highest degree, while light and 
air is excluded as much as possible from 
the sap, which is evaporated as rapidly 
as possible. This greater rapidity of 
evaporation secured with modern methods 
adds largely to the improved color and 
flavor of the modern products, which if 
properly made today will be light colored 
and very mild and delicate of flavor. 
The dark toned products are considered 
second quality by discerning buyers. 
The Evaporator. —The modern syrup 
evaporator is a triumph in its way. It 
is capable of boiling down the sap into 
buckets. Some makers use covers on 
their buckets to exclude rain, bark, leaves, 
etc., while others consider covers of no 
value—often wasting sap and unreliable 
as a protection. Perhaps their best qual¬ 
ity is that they keep the sun from shining 
iuto the buckets and starting fermenta¬ 
tion. 
Gathering Sap. —Modern makers use 
a covered gathering tub. usually of gal¬ 
vanized iron. This is frequently steril¬ 
ized, while all the sap is strained as it 
enters or leaves the tub or tank. As the 
hot syrup leaves the last compartment of 
the evaporator it is again strained, this 
time through heavy white felt, so as to 
remove the mineral deposits nature places 
in the sap. When the syrup goes to the 
house or to the sugaring dowu pan it is 
again strained through felt, and cooled. 
In this last boiling down great care is 
needed to secure just the density required 
by the pure food laws. A hydrometer is 
“To the Fourth 
Generation” 
Imperfect flowers, tasteless, ill 
sized or tough vegetables have 
“no pride of ancestry, no hope 
in posterity.” Their imperfections, 
under ideal conditions, might be 
worked out in from four to forty 
generations. But you cannot 
afford year after year to select the 
best samples from vine and plant 
and rear the seed to restore the 
perfect qualities nature ordained. 
Fl71?1}V’<2 CrcwiYC 
Ferry 
are the result of many generations 
of scientific selection. They hold 
the promise of Nature’s perfect 
qualities freed from every im¬ 
poverishment. Plant Ferry’s Seeds 
and enjoy this extra insurance of 
garden success. 
Write for the 1919 Ferry ' 'Seed 
Annual ," a copy uiill be sent 
you free. Dealers everywhere 
sell Ferry's Pedigreed Seeds. 
D. M. FERRY & CO., Detroit, Michigan 
(and Windsor, Ontario) 
VIC KS 
a?d A FLORAL GUIDE 
FOR., 
i9i9 
ITS FREE-' ^ WRITE TOD; 
Several hew Features. a 
Based on our experience as the 
oldest mail order seed concern and largest 
grower of Asters and other seeds in America. 
miO acres an 1 12 greenhouses in best seed grow¬ 
ing section. Our Guide is full of helpful informa¬ 
tion about planting, etc.—an invaluable aid to a 
successful garden. Illustrates and describes leading 
Vegetables. Flowers, Farm Seeds. Plants and Fruits. 
This book, the best we have Issued, is yours, ab¬ 
solutely free. 
Ask for your copy today before you forget. 
JAMES VICK’S SONS 
39 Stone Street. Rochester, N. Y. 
The Flower City 
2— CROP SEED POTATOES 
Cobbler—Mills Pride—Giants (Late) 
SUPERBA (White and Red Skins 
SEED CORN— Yellow and White 
Circular Free 
MINCH BROS., Bridgeton, N. J. 
/IflTT’S SWEET 
v''* CLOVER 
Hulled and scarified white sweet clover is about 
ten dollars per bushel cheaper than red. (Un¬ 
hulled cheaper yet.) # As it is a biennial, taking 
the place of red in the rotation and any 
amount better as a land builder, itis an eco¬ 
nomical substitute. Winter sowing is the 
best. Ask for samples and prices as well aa 
our catalogue telling “How to Know Good 
Seed”. All other kinds of field seeds too. 
... O. M. SCOTT & SONS CO. 
l^MainSt. Marysville, Ohio 
DDE AND PUR! 
CLOVER SEED 
Our high grades of Clover, Alfalfa, Alsike. Timothy, Seed 
Oats, Seed Corn. Maine Grown Seed Potatoes, Soy Beans, 
etc., are the most carefully selected and recleaned. High¬ 
est in Purity and Germination. We pay the Freight. 
Catalog and samples Free if you mention this paper. 
P. L. ROHRER, - Smoketown, Lancaster Co., Pa. 
Furnishes the sweetest and most luscious creamy nutri¬ 
ment you can imagine. Acclaimed the most important 
horticultural acquisition of recent years. Awarded the 
only medal given for sweet corn by the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society in 67 years. 
De Lue’s Golden Giant is the result of 12 years' selec¬ 
tion from the product of the Howling Mob crossed with 
Golden Bantam and combines all the good points of 
both parents. 
Stalks very short and stout near the ground. Two to 
three ears; 8 to 9 inches long; cob of small diameter, 
carrying from 12 to 22 rows of long, broad kernels of 
deep orange color. 
This seed offered by the originator is 2 years in advance of that sold by com¬ 
petitors (as to selection). Beware of substitutes. 
It excels all other early varieties in size, productiveness and quality, and all the late 
varieties in quality and early maturity. Growers report that it is from 1 to 2 
weeks earlier than Golden Bantam. It is the one corn for the home or market 
gardener who wants the greatest amount of highest quality com in the shortest 
period of time from the smallest piece of land. Illustrated circular, “How to 
Know and How to Grow a Perfect Sweet Corn,” sent with order. Price, % oz., 
35 cts.; 1 oz. 50 cts.; 1 pint=12 ozs., $5.00; 1 quart, $10.00. 
Send Check or Money Order. No Stamps. 
FREDERICK S. De LUE, M. D., Experimental Farm, Needham, Mass., Dept. A 
