‘Tbt RURAL NEW-YORKER 
400 
Every Step in Maple Su^ar Making, 
E FFECT UPON TREES.— Now the sap of a tree 
is really its blood, charged with its food. At first 
thought it would naturally seem that the withdrawal 
of any considerable quantity would seriously affect 
the health and vitality of the tree. But such is not 
the case. There are thousands of giant trees now 
standing in locations where they have escaped the 
woodchopper that have yielded large quantities of 
sap annually for closely upon 150 years that are 
still healthy and vigorous, and apparently good for 
another century. The fact is that during certain 
processes of digestion of the sap, gas is generated 
within the tree. This gas develops an internal pres¬ 
sure. and this pressure forces the sap from the 
wounds. The escape of the sap releases the pressure 
and the sap ceases to flow. This cessation comes 
long' before an amount of sap sufficiently large to 
affect the health of the tree in any appreciable way 
lias escaped. It is like a scratch upon a man’s hand. 
The total weight of a cord of maple wood as cut 
from the tree is in the vicinity of S.000 lbs. Of 
this, as has been stated, one-half, or 4.000 lbs., is 
sap. Only 100 lbs. of three per cent sap will be 
required to yield 3 lbs. of maple sugar, which is the 
average amount obtained from one cord of wood. 
Obviously the loss of this comparatively small 
amount cannot cause any serious injury. The fact 
that sap flows to any great extent only during cer¬ 
tain atmospheric conditions is an indi¬ 
cation that this stage of digestion and 
the consequent generation of.gas takes 
place only during such weather condi¬ 
tions. Conversely, the fact, that this 
digestion takes place only during the 
weather conditions already described 
explains why the sap flow is at its 
greatest height during similar atmos¬ 
pheric conditions. 
SAP-GATHERING UTENSILS. — 
Among the Indians, who, possibly, were 
the first people to make maple syrup, 
the sap was originally caught in recep¬ 
tacles made of birch bark. This style 
of receptacle was adopted by the white 
settlers of Canada and certain parts of 
Michigan and Wisconsin, and was in 
common use until a comparatively re¬ 
cent date. But in New York and New 
England the original receptacle con¬ 
sisted of a heavy, clumsy trough, 
hewn from a solid block, set upon the 
ground and bearing a close resemblance, 
except in the matter of length, to the 
log watering troughs occasionally seen 
along country roadsides even at the present time. 
A few such troughs are still in use in certain 
i Mated localities, but in general they gave way to 
wooden tubs or buckets suspended from the tree, 
something like a century or more ago. These, in 
turn, have largely given way to light, neat buckets 
of tin or galvanized iron holding from 12 to 1*5 and 
sometimes 20 quarts, and each usually fitted with 
a cover to exclude rain and snow. There are, how¬ 
e'er, many thousands of these wooden buckets still 
in use, and by some of the very best maple-sugar 
makers, though it is many years since wooden tubs 
have been manufactured for this purpose. 
T1IE SAP SPOUT.—Originally the sap was con¬ 
ducted into the receptacles by means of long, thin, 
grooved ^.splinters extending from the tap-hole into 
tin* trough. These gave way to semi-circular spouts 
that were driven into the bark immediately below 
Formal!) Sap Was Gathered in Pails on a iron's 
Shoulders, Fig. VS 
Part II. 
Many Thousand Wood Sap Bucl-ets Are Still in 
Use. Fir/. V0 
the tap-hole. Many of these are still in use. but 
they have, been largely superseded-by tubular spouts 
of metal that are driven tightly into the tap-holes. 
Of these there are more than 100 patented styles 
and more than 20 different forms in common use. 
Most of them are equipped with a hook from which 
the bucket is suspended, and also with an arrange¬ 
ment of some kind by which a cover may be at¬ 
tached. But so far as the flow of sap is concerned, 
no one style has any superiority over another. In 
many instances twigs of elder or sumac, with the 
piths burned out with a hot iron, are used, and 
Fettles Gov. Way to Poos on Uriel: Arclics. Fig. 100 
occasionally wooden plugs, each with a - longitudinal 
hole bored through it. arc fitted to the tap-lioles and 
driven just through the bark. And all give equally 
satisfactory results, so far as the flow of sap is con¬ 
cerned. 
COLLECTING THE SAP.—Originally sap was 
collected in pails, suspended by a yoke from a man’s 
shoulders, and carried to the boiling place by man 
power alone. The modern practice is to build con¬ 
veniently located roads, set a low. broad, covered 
tank upon a low sled, drive into close proximity to 
the trees, pour the sap into the gathering tank and 
drive upon an elevation near the boiling place. Then 
a pipe connected with the storage tank is attached 
to the gathering tank, a faucet is opened and the 
sap flows by gravity from one tank into tin* other. 
Recently, however, a system has been introduced 
which is rapidly coming into favor, whereby pipes 
connected with the storage tank take the place of 
tin teams. These pipes are supported by posts, 
extend far out into tlie sugar orchard,, and are 
equipped at convenient places with funnels or “hop¬ 
pers,” into which the sap is poured, whence it flows 
by gravity into the storage tank. A still more re¬ 
cent system is now in process of introduction by 
which the pipes are connected will the tap-hole in 
each tree, thus eliminating entirely all labor con¬ 
nected with gathering the sap. A continuous grade 
of at least two per cent is essential to the operation 
of either of these systems. 
BOILING THE SAP.—Originally sap was con¬ 
centrated bv being boiled in cast-iron kettles hung 
upon poles in the open air. Gradually shallow pans 
set upon stone or brick arches were substituted for 
the deeper kettles. At first the pans were merely 
wide strips of sheet iron nailed to planks which 
formed the sides. From this numberless improve¬ 
ments have been made, until the modern boiling 
plant comprises a substantial frame building 
equipped with storage ranks, patented evaporators, 
automatic feeders, cast-iron arches, separate pans 
for reducing the syrup to sugar, and various other 
paraphernalia hereafter to be described. Neverthe¬ 
less, there are individual and isolated sugar orchards 
scattered throughout the maple sugar districts in 
which every grade and style of equipment, from tfie 
most crude to the most complete and convenient out¬ 
fit that inventive genius can produce. If one wishes 
to produce a low or even a medium grade of sugar 
that will answer for home use and will bring from 
20 to 25 cents per lb. on the market, one style of 
equipment will give as good service as another, with 
the single exception that the more crude and primi¬ 
tive an equipment, the greater will be the cost of 
manufacture in the two items of labor and fuel. 
The foregoing descriptions have been introduced 
merely for the sake of demonstrating that one does 
not need an elaborate and expensive equipiunt for 
the purpose of making maple sugar. The essential 
elements are the collection and concentration of the 
sap. IIow this is done is a matter of minor impor¬ 
tance. The moral is to use the equipment that you 
have, or can get. merely substituting elbow-grease 
and energy for efficiency and convenience of equip¬ 
ment, and to utilize every maple tree in the manu¬ 
facture of maple sugar. 
PREPARING A FANCY PRODUCT. 
—However, if one wishes to make a 
gilt-edged product that will readily 
command 40 and 50 cents, and even $1 
a pound, he must use the most up-to- 
date equipment that is to be found and 
pay as close attention to every detail 
of manufacture from the first to last, 
does the man who brings out an 
fancy product along any other 
An equipment of this kind will 
cost at present abnormal prices closely 
around two dollars per tree, exclusive 
of the boiling house: but. if properly 
cared for. no man will live long enough 
to wear one out. Moreover, the product 
is also selling at abnormal prices. Still, 
as previously intimated, one does not 
need any such an expensive equipment 
to produce at a nominal cost a grade of 
maple sugar that in home cookery will 
answer every purpose of 20-eents-a- 
pound granulated sugar. 
HIGH PRICES.—Now the question 
naturally arises, why maple sugar com¬ 
mand' a price so far above that of cano or beet sugar, 
’"'r.efly. the answer is this: So intimately associated 
with maple sap that chemists have not as yet suc¬ 
ceeded in separating and identifying it. there is an 
essence which, in its full purity, possesses the most 
exquisitely delicate and delicious flavor of any known 
substance. This essence imparts its own flavor to 
the maple products, and so, independently of its 
saccharine quality, maple sugar has a high value as 
a table delicacy and as a confection. This flavor ex¬ 
ists just in proportion to the care and manipulation 
exercised in the manufacture. In the higher grades 
it is pure, delicate and delicious; in the lower grades 
it is largely overpowered by the coarser, more rank 
and oftentimes pungent or acrid flavors of caramel 
atul bacterial products, these substances being aided 
ia their development by careless and unsanitary 
methods of handling the sap. c. o. oumsukk. 
Concentration is Carried On in Comfortable Build¬ 
ings. Fig. 101 
