7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
421 
Ten Essentials for Maple Syrup Making, 
T REES.—The very first essential in making 
maple syrup or sugar for home use or for sale 
is obviously a maple tree. One good-sized tree will 
make a surprising amount of delicious sweets for 
the home table, and the half-dozen large shade 
trees round a home have kept many a housewife 
or youngster happily engaged for some weeks of 
Springtime. But for commercial purposes a certain 
number of trees is necessary to warrant taking up 
the work. I would say 100 good trees would make 
the job worth while, if plenty of Fall plowing has 
been done, so that attention to this work will not 
upset the season’s work on crops. Perhaps fewer 
trees would also warrant attention. Tt depends on 
the value of the time of the owner at just this par¬ 
ticular season. Not many season’s work will be 
required, even with a small bush, to 
pay the cost of equipment. However, if 
the trees are on a northern slope, thus 
making the sugar season unusually late. 
I wouldn’t go into it, as work of this 
sort carried on too late in Spring will 
derange the entire season’s farm work. 
EQUIPMENT.—Next after trees 
the most essential equipment consists 
of buckets to catch the sap in. and 
preferably modern sap spouts on the 
Grimm type pattern. These buckets 
may be of blocked tin or galvanized 
iron, or of wood if kept well protected 
with clean white paint, Absolute 
cleanliness in all equipment and in all 
operations is of great importance. A 
modern evaporator is very desirable 
if a first-class product is desired, 
though pretty good work can be done 
with some of the older type pans. A 
galvanized storage tank or two will be 
necessary, also a galvanized gathering 
tub or tank. Also plenty of thick 
white wool or felt strainers, a variety 
of pails and modern 1 lb. or 14 -lb. 
molds for sugar and tin gallon or half¬ 
gallon syrup cans. Some of the most 
successful makers are using glass jars 
or bottles as containers to supply a 
fancy trade. 
FUEL.—Having the sap ready for 
business a big item is the use of the 
right kind of fuel. Plenty of hard, 
dry wood is very necessary. Some 
waste limbs, fence posts etc, may be 
used. Wood is rather hard to obtain 
on some farms, and is expensive to buy. 
Many are using soft coal with the 
wood, the latter to carry the blazing 
heat to the farther end of the evap¬ 
orator. the former to furnish the most 
intense heat. This year I imagine con¬ 
siderable use will be made in Mils sec¬ 
tion of coke, at $8 a ton. 
KNOWLEDGE OF BEST METH¬ 
ODS.—Speed in handling the sap and 
in converting it into syrup as quickly 
as possible after it leaves the spouts 
is one prime essential to the making 
of a first-class product. Cleanliness is 
a close second to it. Frequent strain¬ 
ings of sap and syrup, covered buckets 
and* storage tanks are essential to 
prevent entry of foreign matter, also to shade the 
sap from the sun. Heat from the sun will start 
fermentation which is ruinous to quality in syrup or 
sugar. Wooden covers to tanks if located out of 
doors are best, as they keep out heat best. 
CORRECT ARRANGEMENT OF EQUIPMENT.— 
This is desirable, as it leads to a saving of time and 
labor. Tanks should be so located as to carry tin 1 
sap from gathering tanks to the pans by a gravity 
system. 
BUILDING FOR BOILING HOUSE.—A building 
in which to locate the evaporator and to shelter the 
fuel and the equipment when not in use is very 
desirable. Thousands of pounds of products have 
been made without a special building, but a high- 
class product is made under a roof, and with protec¬ 
tion from blowing leaves, ashes, and dirt of all sorts. 
The building need not be expensive, but should have 
a good roof, and proper ventilation, so as to take off 
great quantities of steam very rapidly. Plenty of 
windows are desirable. I know of one good building 
and equipment that is handicapped somewhat. There 
i no .-indow in it. and the room is too dark to see 
to do the work well. Some others I have visited are 
so poorly ventilated that clouds of steam so fill the 
room that one can’t see across it. These are little 
things, but they hamper work. 
SUGARING-OFF OUTFIT.—Co-operation with a 
competent housewife who is capable of boiling down 
the syrup to proper weight, and of sugaring off and 
pouring the sugar into molds, is necessary to a good 
product, unless a sugaring-off outfit is established in 
the boiling house. A stove and smaller pan for boil¬ 
ing down the syrup, a syrup thermometer, and 
strainers and settling tanks, also scales for weigh¬ 
ing each can, are some of the necessities for the 
final operations. Excellent, hard dry wood is best 
for the final boiling. A careful, efficient, watchful 
Gathering the Sap. Fig. 188. 
The Evaparator at Work. Fig. 189. 
attendant is very important to see to this last 
work. It is hard, exacting work, but one which 
many people enjoy doing. 
PROPER STORAGE FOR EQUIPMENT. All of 
the equipment must be promptly and thoroughly 
cleaned when the season closes; when thoroughly 
dried it must be stored for the year in a dry place. 
Here is where a good boiling house comes handy. 
PREPARATION OF WOOD FOR NEXT YEAR. 
—Some time during the Spring or Summer a supply 
of wood must be prepared in advance for the next 
year’s use, that it may thoroughly season or dry. 
Then it must be put under shelter, handy for use 
when needed. 
PROPER MARKETING.—The first essential to 
this is careful and attractive labeling with prefer¬ 
ably a trade-mark which shall come to i..ean cer¬ 
tain definite quality to consumers. If one belongs 
tt) a maple products association, which is a very de¬ 
sirable thing to do. then the association’s labels and 
trademark must be used. Probably delivery, in this 
case, will be made to the battling plant in big steel 
casks furnished by t!h 'Veer or the association 
and the bottling will be 'clone there. If there is no 
association within reach, by all means develop a 
special or fancy trade. This is easy by advertising 
in farm papers or magazines and much better prices 
may be realized than if sold to local dealers or gro¬ 
cers, who set a price to suit themselves. In order to 
know how much a fair price must be the producer 
must keep accounts for a period of several years. 
The State College at Cornell, through the Forestry 
Department, is sending blanks to producers making 
this easy and showing the things that must be taken 
into consideration in determining the cost of produc¬ 
tion. A neat label which tells how to care for or 
store the syrup or sugar, and which perhaps has a 
few specially good recipes telling how to use these 
products is a great help in selling them. 
Due Cortland County producer has 
never sold much through the very val¬ 
uable and efficient local association, 
merely because, by advertising and by 
the use of proper labels of this sort on 
his very high quality product he had 
already developed a splendid private 
trade in maple products before the as¬ 
sociation was organized. 
PROPER MARKETING.—This is 
essential to financial success in this 
work as are the trees that produce the 
sap. In perhaps no other product has 
there been the wide margin between 
the prices to the producers and the 
prices paid by consumers. The big 
majority of consumers have indeed 
never seen pure maple products in the 
market, as the products have been 
adulterated with cane products before 
being placed on the city markets by 
firms who make this a business. The 
adulterated products are always in 
these days of pure food laws, so la¬ 
belled that close inspection determines 
what they are. But even so the retail 
prices have shown unjustifiable profits 
on the part of mixers and middlemen. 
New York State now leads the country 
in the quantity of maple sweets pro¬ 
duced. It is fast becoming organized, 
some number in the teens of counties 
now belonging, I believe, to some sell¬ 
ing organization. Cortland County has 
a fine bottling plant, and packs for sev¬ 
eral counties. This year the G. I,. F. 
Exchange will lend maple producers 
valuable aid in selling their output. It 
it best to tail early, with tin* first sunny, 
thawing days. Oftentimes the delay 
means the loss of some of the best 
“runs.” March f! to 10 is about as 
early as Central New York counties 
ever begin. m. g. f. 
Advice From a Tractor Man 
“Keep the spark plays clean." 
T HIS is information that should be 
pasted on the body of the tractor 
in plain sight of the operator. If one 
cylinder misses, the situation is com¬ 
parable to the lise of horse with a par¬ 
alyzed leg to which a weight is attached. This un¬ 
natural condition is injurious to the mechanism of 
the machine, is a waste of fuel, and oil as well. 
There is a tendency for the fuel to work past the 
piston to the crank case, and there dilute the 
lubricant. 
Although I find the tractor a little more 
powerful on kerosene than gasoline, yet there is dan¬ 
ger of fouling the spark plugs more often when ker¬ 
osene is used. If the motor fails to start readily, 
the spark plugs should be examined. The carbon 
collects inside the shell, and seems to be an excellent 
conductor for current. The current will leap 
through the carbon, rather than at tin* points of the 
plug. A clean plug will insure regular firing of 
the cylinder if the points are properly adjusted. 
The gap between the points of the plugs should be 
pne-thirty-second of an inch apart, or the thickness 
of a worn dime. 
There is possibility of cracked insulator. When 
the plug is cleaned the insulator should be carefully 
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