A history of Vermont's maple sugar industry

by Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association

Mr. Coombs. And it is sweet?

Mr. Madden. Sweet, yes; but if you put it on a hot cake you would say right away, “Take it away; I won’t have such stuff,” and you would ordinarily say that it was glucose. You would be wrong, but that is what you would say.

Now the Vermont sugar is not so strong, and it does not require so much cane sugar to reduce that to a flavor comparing with the natural maple syrup obtained from the sap itself; and I tell you that we can take maple sugar and reduce it, blending it with cane sugar—and by that I mean take ordinary cut-loaf sugar, for instance, and melt it—and we can take this syrup that is made by melting the maple sugar and blend it with the white syrup, and we can produce a maple syrup that is in flavor strong enough and yet delicate enough to satisfy the appetite, and that, in my judgment, is better than the sap syrup made from the maple tree for a great majority of the people.

As an illustration, although we get $11.50 per dozen gallons for a sap maple syrup that is boiled from the sap of the maple tree and the character of the maple syrup that I have just described, about 95 percent of our business is on the syrup that is made from the maple sugar and the cane sugar rather than on the syrup made from the sap itself. Now, if we have to take this maple syrup and brand it as cane sugar, or have any such restrictions, we can not sell it. Now, what are we going to do? We do not believe in frauds any more than you do. We think just as much of our reputation as you do of yours; but we do not want to be held responsible for conditions that we have not built up.

INTERIOR OF MODERN EQUIPPED MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

Mr. Coombs. It seems to me your whole argument has illustrated that everybody who buys these things knows he is not buying the pure article.

Mr. Richardson. It is either that or you are deceiving them, one or the other.

Mr. Madden. Well, I will answer another phase of that question.

Now, it is commonly assumed, I think, that these blends, mixtures, substitutes, and what some of our theoretical gentlemen call commercial frauds, are done for the purpose of palming off on the people something that is cheap or inferior at a high price. Right there is where the mistake is made. The profits on that class of goods are less to us than on the higher class and more expensive goods, because competition forces these lower-class commodities down to such an extent that they pay us less profit than any other.