A history of Vermont's maple sugar industry

by Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association

MAPLE SUGAR CAMP IN ONE OF THE
LARGEST GROVES IN NORTHERN VERMONT.

The following quotations are from the testimony of Mr. Madden before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Fifty-seventh Congress, pages 85 and following:

Mr. Madden. I would like to speak to you a moment in regard to maple syrup. That is a subject that will undoubtedly interest you all. We are in a very peculiar position in regard to maple syrup. We do not believe it is right that a syrup composed of maple syrup made from either the sap of the maple tree or from maple sugar and mixed with glucose should be sold as a maple syrup; but we do believe that a maple syrup made from syrup of the maple sugar and mixed with cane-sugar syrup or refined-sugar syrup, I will say—because beet and cane sugar are the same after they have been through boneblack—we do believe that should be sold for maple syrup, and I will tell you why. In the first place, the amount of sap of maple syrup—that is, syrup that is made from boiling the sap of the maple tree without converting it into sugar—is so limited that it would not, in my judgment, supply more than 5 percent of the demand for maple syrup in the United States.

Now, when maple sap is boiled into sugar—and I want to say before I go further that the reason that the amount of sap syrup is so limited is because it is hard to keep it from fermentation, and the season is so short in which the sap runs that it is difficult to manufacture, to boil enough in the camps to supply the demand; consequently a large proportion of the sap in the States where maple sugar is made is boiled into maple sugar. Now, we have found by experience—not by chemical analysis, but by experience—that the maple sugar made from the sap of the maple tree in Ohio is not so strong as the maple sugar made from the sap of the maple tree in Vermont, and that the maple sugar made from the sap of the maple tree in Vermont is not so strong in flavor as that which is made in Canada, in Quebec Province, because it seems the colder the climate, the stronger in flavor the maple sap is.

Now, we buy these various sugars and reduce them to a liquor to make maple syrup, and I will give you my word, gentlemen, if we take a Canadian sugar, which is the highest priced maple sugar we have, it being worth at the present time twelve cents a pound, while Vermont is worth only eight cents a pound—I give you my word that if we make a liquor by melting that Canadian maple sugar, without the addition of sugar to reduce the strength of the flavor, it is so strong you could not use it.

Mr. Coombs. What do you mean by strong?

Mr. Madden. Strong in flavor.

Mr. Coombs. You mean it is positive?

Mr. Madden. The flavor is so positive; yes, sir.