Most of the fifty million or so pounds of maple sugar made in this country is made in six states, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. The boys and girls of these states have exceptional opportunities of studying the mysteries of tree life and of sharing the bounty the maples provide. I was not brought up in any one of the above-named states, yet I remember the maple sugar making in the woods along the river. One of my early recollections is of a party of Indian women, on piebald ponies, bringing fascinating heart-shaped cakes of maple sugar to exchange at the farm for fresh meat. Theirs were no pale, anæmic, delicate squares of creamy texture, but ruddy and hard. Less discriminating than now, we children ate with relish the coarse sugar almost black from the bits of bark, chips of leaves, and twigs which had undoubtedly been boiled with it. Nor did we innocents turn from it with loathing when told by a teasing uncle that its colour was due to the sirup having been strained by the Indians through their blankets. We didn't believe it then and I don't yet. How very bad for the blankets!
The Indians discovered the maple sugar industry long before they themselves were discovered by white people. They taught our New England ancestors how to tap the trees and boil down the sirup and how to "sugar off." They had little or no sugar except what the maples supplied. The Indians had very primitive ways of tapping the trees, collecting the sap, boiling, and sugaring. These ways have been improved in the last three hundred years. Although wooden buckets and home-made spiles made of sumach branches may still be used where only a few trees are tapped, the up-to-date sugar maker has modern, patent, covered buckets, spouts, and evaporators. He uses a thermometer and knows "for sure" when to shut off his fire if he wants to make sirup, and how high the temperature may go to make the best sugar. He knows, too, whether he can afford to make sugar which tests eighty per cent. or ninety per cent. pure and get the bounty, if his state pays one, or if it costs him less labour and expense to sell his entire product in the form of sirup.
But scientific methods can never take away the charm of maple sugar making. There is so much yet to be learned from the trees about the whys and wherefores of their behaviour during the harvest, that our interest in maple products increases as our interest in mere "sweets" decreases.
If you have a "sugar bush" planted by your great-grandfather, the chances are that you have had annual opportunities to help in making sugar, ever since you could drive a horse on frosty mornings to collect the sap. But I am going to suppose that during the winter you have been reading "Trees Every Child Should Know" and have been identifying the trees about your home. The maples are about the easiest trees to identify when leafless. Suppose you have found several maple trees, good big ones, right in your own door yard. The hard or sugar maple is the one most frequently used for sugar making, but experiments show that soft maples make good sugar too. It isn't worth while to tap trees in winter. The sugar is in them all right because the leaves were storing up the starch all summer. This starch has been changed to sugar in the living cells of the wood. But you couldn't get any of it until the sap begins to run. It does this with the first warm, sunny days of February.
After locating all the trees you expect to tap, you must make some preparations so that you will not lose any time at the critical moment. I knew one boy who got his bit and brace out the first thing, bored a hole in the tree trunk, and lost about a gallon of sap before he could get a spile and a pail ready to catch it. You want a spile or spout for every pail and a pail for every tree. The patent spouts have a hook upon which the bucket hangs. If you use sumach spiles you may have to set the bucket on the ground where it is likely to get dirt in it, tip over, and it is so far from the spile that the wind blows the sap away from the pail entirely. The pails should be generous in size unless you expect to collect the sap more than once a day. An average yield per day is five quarts per hole. The pails and spiles should be in readiness before "sugar weather" begins. Beside the pails and spouts you need a wooden mallet, and a bit and brace or small auger for the outdoor work; a kettle for boiling down, a large jar to put the fresh sap in, and a dipper to dip it out, a strainer and a skimmer for the indoor work. If you boil your sap outdoors using cheap fuel you will make more out of your enterprise than if you use coal or gas. A good sap-running day is a warm, sunny day after a frosty night. While the days and nights are about the same temperature the sap does not run much.
The best place to tap a tree is about four feet from the ground, and fortunately that is the easiest place to work with the auger or bit. The bit should be bright and sharp; a dull, rusty bit makes a shabby hole in the wood with a lot of woody shreds which clog the flow of sap. Clean out the hole, as any chips left in stop the flow in the same way. The bit or auger used should be about one half inch in diameter. A bigger hole might give more sap but would injure the tree more. The tree fills up the smaller hole in a few years with new tissue. The hole should not be deeper than three inches. It is a mistake to think that the centre of the tree holds the sap. As a matter of fact there is less there than anywhere else and more as you near the surface. The living, active part of the tree is just under the bark. It is necessary to say this over and over again so that people will get it into their minds. The Indians used to tap the trees on the south side because they said more sap came from that side. Experiments show that on warm, sunny days, this is the case. On cloudy days, however, sap comes about equally from holes on all sides. If the trees have been tapped before, it is best to tap at some distance from the old places. The size of the auger and spile should be the same and the latter should be forced in tightly, and not fall out when the pail is full.
Pure sap makes the clearest sirup and the lightest-coloured sugar. Every bit of dust, leaves, twigs, or bark that gets into the pail leaves its mark on the sugar even though strained out. So covers on the pails are preferred if one can afford them. Most of the sap runs between nine o'clock in the morning and noon. It has been found by tests that this morning sap has more sugar in it than that which runs later in the day. It is the custom in some places to throw away the ice if the sap freezes. This is very wasteful, for this ice contains about thirty per cent. of the sugar. Of course, melting ice is expensive business so one must try not to let his sap freeze. The sap in the storage jar or tank must not be allowed to get warm, though, as it may sour. It should be boiled as soon after gathering as possible to ensure best results.
Maple sap contains other ingredients beside water and sugar. In boiling, the water passes off in steam and the sugar and other solids remain. The changes in colour from clear sap to dark brown sugar is caused by the action of the heat upon the sugar and other substances. All sugar makers know that the lightest coloured sirup and sugar can be made from the earliest run of sap. That is because, as the season advances, more of the lime, potash, magnesia, and other substances are present in the sap. You see the tree does not stop work just because you tap it; and the sap is changing every day until, by the time the buds begin to open, the sap is so changed that it does not make good sugar at all.
Water boils when it reaches two hundred and twelve degrees, Fahrenheit, as any thermometer will tell you. In fact, you cannot heat water hotter than two hundred and twelve degrees, for at that temperature the water becomes steam. A mixture of sugar and water will not boil at two hundred and twelve degrees but requires a higher temperature. Therefore, as the water passes off the sap in boiling, and as the amount of sugar per gallon increases, it gets hotter and hotter. It is necessary to watch boiling sap carefully to avoid burning. In making sirup it is important to have it just thick enough to taste right and not so thick that it will granulate. Sirup that weighs eleven pounds to the gallon has long been considered as "just right," and it has been found by testing that if you take the sirup off the fire just as soon as the thermometer registers two hundred and nineteen degrees it will weigh eleven pounds to the gallon and will not granulate. If you take it off when the thermometer says two hundred and sixteen degrees your sirup will be a pretty fair article, but you cannot expect to get as good a price for it, because it has more water in it than there should be in a prime article.