A history of Vermont's maple sugar industry

by Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association

MAPLE SWEETS AND HOW TO GET THE PURE GOODS.

If Vermont is noted as being the home of any industry, that industry is the production of maple sugar and syrup, and in this booklet we will tell you something of the process of manufacture and of whom you can procure this delicious luxury in all its purity.

The producer must first have a grove of maple trees of the sugar maple variety. These groves Vermont has in abundance. They are on the hillside and in the valley; yet a grove of sugar maples that can be utilized for sugar making cannot be produced in a few years, as the tree is comparatively of slow growth and lives to a good old age. Not many trees are used for sugar making until they are 40 years old, and have a diameter of a foot or more. These are called second growth. Then there are others, two, three or even four feet in diameter; sturdy old trees that have withstood the storms of many winters. Some of the trees used for sugar making purposes have been growing since the Pilgrim Fathers landed in 1620.

Along in March of each year, the farmer begins to watch the weather for signs of spring and conditions favorable to a flow of sap. It can only be obtained for a period of a few weeks in the spring, and on certain days when the weather conditions are favorable. Snow usually lays on the ground when the sugarmaker begins his operations in the sugar camp. The first step is to break roads in the soft and thawing snow, so that the teams can get about and gather the sap. This breaking roads is often no light task as the snow oftentimes has icy crusts beneath the surface. After the oxen or horses have been over the road several times and they have become somewhat passable, the buckets are distributed one or two to a tree and the sugar maker goes about his grove tapping them by boring a hole with a bit three-eighths to one-half inch in diameter and two or three feet from the ground as the snow will permit; in this hole he drives a spout that conveys the sap to the bucket, and on which the bucket usually hangs.

TAPPING THE GROVE.

When the sugar maker has finished tapping his trees he is ready for a flow of sap. Sometimes it comes at once and then again the weather may turn suddenly cold and for a week or ten days there is nothing doing in the sugar camp; meantime he can get his boiling apparatus in readiness and perhaps get a little more wood.

But spring will come sooner or later and there is bound to be a rush of sap. Then comes the busy time in the camp; the men and boys gather the sap with oxen and horses. This is usually done with a tank holding from 20 to 40 pails on a sled and drawn to the sugar house and stored in tanks from which in turn it flows to the boiling pan or evaporator; the flow from the storage tank being regulated by feeders which keeps the boiling sap in the evaporator constantly at the same level. The sap as it boils passes from one compartment to another becoming more dense and sweeter until it reaches the syruping off pan, where it is drawn off in the form of syrup. The right density can be determined by a thermometer or the skilled operator can tell by the way the syrup “leather aprons” from the edge of the dipper. If the thermometer is used a temperature of 219° F. will give a syrup that will weigh eleven pounds to the gallon net. It must be remembered, however, that the thermometers are graduated at the sea level, and as the altitude increases a lower temperature will give the same result on account of the reduced air pressure. An allowance of 1° for every 500 feet rise has been found to be about right; thus at an altitude of 1,000 feet a boiling temperature of 217°F. will give the 11 pounds syrup. Syrup is not however usually brought to the required density in the evaporating pan but is drawn off a little less than 11 pounds net, and brought to a uniform standard in larger quantities than would be possible in the evaporating pan. The fire under the boiling sap should be quick and hot, as the sooner it is reduced to syrup after it runs from the tree the better the product. As the sap begins to boil a scum of bubbles rises to the top, which must be constantly removed with a skimmer, and the man who tends the fires, skims the sap and draws off the syrup has a busy job.

When the sap has been reduced to syrup having a density of about 11 pounds to the gallon, the niter or malate of lime, sometimes called sugar sand, which is held in solution in the sap and which crystalizes or precipitates at this stage of evaporation, can be separated from the syrup. This is accomplished in two or more ways; some strain it through felt while hot and leave the syrup free of niter; others let stand in buckets or tanks until cold; then turn or draw off the clear amber syrup leaving the malate of lime at the bottom.

Nothing has as yet been said about sugaring off, but this is a process by itself and comes after we get the syrup. Anyone who has maple syrup can sugar off, as the saying is, or convert the syrup to sugar by boiling it.

In the sugar camp the sugaring off is usually done in a deep pan on a separate arch, as the boiling sugar has a tendency to boil over unless constantly watched. The size of the pan depends on the form of product to be made. If the sugar is to be put in tin pails or wood tubs it can be handled in lots of 100 pounds or more; this would require a pan 12 inches high, 2 feet wide and 4 feet long. For shipping long distances or to hot climates the sugar should be cooked down to a density of 240° to 245°F. Great care is necessary however, not to burn or scorch the sugar when cooked to so high a temperature. For ordinary purposes if the sugar is to be used soon after it is made a temperature of 235° to 238° is high enough.

When making small cakes it is better to have two or more smaller pans and have the batches of sugar done at different intervals as the color and grain of the cake sugar depend largely on the amount of stirring it gets while hot and the sooner it is stirred after it is done the better. When the sugar gets so thick that it will barely pour it is run into moulds where it soon hardens and is ready to be wrapped in waxed paper, packed in boxes and sent to market.

There is another form of sugar, and no sugar party is complete without it, that is sugar on snow or ice. Boil the syrup down a little past 230°, cool it and put on snow with the spoon. When cooled, the waxed sugar eaten with an occasional plain doughnut and now and then a pickle is a pleasure long to be remembered and a banquet fit for a King.

To be sure and get the pure goods, order direct from the producer or from the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Market, Randolph, Vt., where maple goods can be procured at any season of the year.

This market is the outgrowth of and closely connected with the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association.

The addresses of producers will be found at the back part of this booklet.