Fig. 77.—Tapping the Maple Trees.—(Courtesy Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.)
Fig. 78.—Transporting the Sap to the Sugar House.—(Courtesy Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.)
Manufacture of Maple Sugar.
—The maple trees in the United States grow chiefly in the New England states, especially in Vermont, New York, Ohio, and Indiana. Very little sugar is made in other states. The season of manufacture is at the beginning of spring, when the sap first begins to run and before the buds of the new leaves have developed very extensively. The season lasts from four to six weeks. In New England it begins the latter part of March and in Ohio and Indiana in February. The trees are bored and a tubular spile driven into the wood through which the sap escapes into the bucket or other receptacle. [Figs. 77], [78], and [79] are typical scenes in a small maple orchard during the season, showing tapping of the trees and collection and boiling of the sap. The sap of the maple tree is extremely bright and clear and requires no clarifying. It is usually evaporated in open kettles or pans, the vacuum process not being employed. The crystallization takes place at the final moment of evaporation and usually the whole mass is sold as sugar, forming what is known in the cane sugar industry as concrete. Maple sugar is never refined, since in the process of refining the peculiar flavor and odor which give it its chief value would disappear. The quantity of maple sugar made in the United States is almost negligible from a commercial point of view, amounting annually to only about 10,000 tons. Perhaps a greater quantity of maple sap is used in the form of sirup than of sugar.
Fig. 79.—Boiling the Maple Sap.—(Courtesy Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.)
Refining of Sugar.
—All kinds of raw sugar but maple are refined before entering commerce. The public taste has demanded a pure white sugar and in so far as beet sugar is concerned the refining process is a necessity, inasmuch as raw beet sugar has a very disagreeable soapy taste and odor which render it unfit for consumption. On the other hand raw cane sugar is aromatic, fragrant, and delicious to a far greater degree in the raw state than when it is refined, since after the refining process it is difficult to distinguish the product of the beet juice from that of the sugar cane.