Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming

by Henry Ward Beecher

Thus about one-sixth of the sugar made annually in the United States is made from the maple-tree.[8] It is to be

remembered too that in Louisiana it is the staple, while at the North maple-sugar has never been manufactured with any considerable skill, or regarded as a regular crop, but only a temporary device of economy. Now it only needs to be understood that maple-sugar may be made so as to have the flavor of the best cane-sugar, and that it may, at a trifling expense, be refined to white sugar, and the manufacture of it will become more general, more skillful, and may, in a little time, entirely supersede the necessity of importing cane-sugar. Indiana stands fourth in the rank of maple-sugar making States. Her annual product is at least four million pounds, which, at six cents the pound amounts to $160,000 per annum. A little exertion would quickly run up the annual value of her home-made sugar to half a million dollars.

Maple-sugar now only brings about two-thirds the price

of New Orleans. The fault is in the manufacturing of it. The saccharine principle of the cane and tree are exactly the same. If the same care were employed in their manufacture they would be indistinguishable; and maple-sugar would be as salable as New Orleans, and if afforded at a less price, might supplant it in the market. The average quantity of sugar consumed in England by each individual is about thirty pounds per annum.

Maple-sugar Making.—Greater care must be taken in collecting the sap. Old, and half-decayed wooden-troughs, with a liberal infusion of leaves, dirt, etc., impart great impurity to the water. Rain-water, decayed vegetable matter, etc., add chemical ingredients to the sap, troublesome to extract, and injuring the quality if not removed. The expense of clean vessels may be a little more, but with care, it could be more than made up in the quality of the sugar. Many are now using earthen-crocks. These are cheap, easily cleaned, and every way desirable, with the single exception of breakage. But if wood-troughs are used, let them be kept scrupulously clean.

The kettles should be scoured thoroughly before use, and kept constantly clean. If rusty, or foul, or coated with burnt sugar, neither the color nor flavor can be perfect. Vinegar and sand have been used by experienced sugar-makers to scour the kettles with. It is best to have, at least, three to a range.

All vegetable juices contain acids, and acids resist the process of crystallization.

Dr. J. C. Jackson[9] directs the one-measured ounce (one-fourth of a gill) of pure lime-water to be added to every gallon of sap. This neutralizes the acid, and not only facilitates the granulation, but gives sugar in a free state, now too generally acid and deliquescent, besides being charged

with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily strikes a black color with tea.

The process of making a pure white sugar is simple and unexpensive. The lime added to the sap, combining with the peculiar acid of the maple, forms a neutral salt; this salt is found to be easily soluble in alcohol. Dr. Jackson recommends the following process. Procure sheet-iron cones, with an aperture at the small end or apex—let them be coated with white-lead and boiled linseed-oil, and thoroughly dried, so that no part can come off. [We do not know why earthen cones, unglazed and painted, would not answer equally well, besides being much cheaper.] Let the sugar be put into these cones, stopping the hole in the lower end until it is entirely cool. Then remove the stopper, and pour upon the base a quantity of strong whisky or fourth-proof rum[10] —allow this to filtrate through until the sugar is white. When the loaf is dried it will be pure white sugar, with the exception of the alcohol. To get rid of this, dissolve the sugar in pure boiling hot-water, and let it evaporate until it is dense enough to crystallize. Then put it again into the cone-moulds and let it harden. The dribblets which come away from the cone while the whisky is draining, may be used for making vinegar. It is sometimes the case that whisky would, if freely used in a sugar camp, go off in a wrong direction, benefiting neither the sugar nor the sugar-maker. If, on this account, any prefer another mode, let them make a saturated solution of loaf-sugar, and pour it in place of the whisky upon the base of the cones. Although the sugar will not be quite as white, the drainings will form an excellent molasses, whereas the drainings by the former method are good only for vinegar.