Necessity for Sugar Makers’ Organizations.
With a steadily growing demand for maple syrup, which today is almost entirely supplied by the mixer, the producers of pure syrup can hope to control the trade only through organization. The difference between the pure and the adulterated product is so marked that there would be little question as to choice, with the genuine sugar known to the popular trade. A large number of the consumers hardly know pure maple syrup when they taste it, and as so great a part of that on the market is spurious, they have little chance to learn. Under such a condition the market can be gained for the pure product only by means of united action. An example of such action is the present Vermont Sugar Growers’ Association.
The situation is very similar to that which has already been successfully met, in the case of certain other farm products, by organized cooperation of producers. Sometimes, as in Germany and Canada, this has been initiated and substantially aided by government action; sometimes, as in Ireland and England, it has been carried through entirely by private enterprise. Some years ago Canadian dairy products formed but an insignificant proportion of the exports of these articles to Great Britain. Now, through the efforts of the Canadian government to foster intelligent and honest methods of production, an English market has been secured for the Canadian output. The Irish Agricultural Organization Society has gone far toward bringing about an economic regeneration of the island, and in Germany rural prosperity has been vastly increased by the same methods. In all these cases the principal purposes aimed at have been the improvement of methods of production, and furnishing a guaranty of purity to consumers.
In the case of maple sugar producers the first necessity is a market for high grade, unadulterated sugar and syrup. This they should be able to secure without much difficulty through responsible association, which can guarantee the quality of all the product bearing its name or stamp. * * *