Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-03-30
Sugar Making.

Sugar making now and sugar making as
it was are very different things, and what it
has gained in facility it has lost in pictur-
esqueness. The old camp with its primitive
appliances is no more; the "kettle" has
been superseded by the "pan," and the
trough has become mass Of crumbling de-
cay. The women and children are kept at
home, and no longer know the old-time de-
lights of "sugaring off," though in the
Acadia of the past their services were not
despised, and the whole household set up its
abode in the woods. The sap was collected
then in troughs, each about three feet long,
followed out of sections of poplars, and was
conveyed to the kettles in barrels, from
which it was transferred by scoops. There
were five or more kettles, from ten to thirty
gallons in capacity, and each was filed with
sap, which was kept boiling, the larger ket-
ties being refilled from the smaller ones as
evaporation reduced the quantity. When
the contents were reduced to a desired con-
sisteDcy, the hot syrup was dipped out and
passed through flannel strainer into cov
| cred tubs, from which again 1t is poured
| into large thick-bottomed kettle for the
process of " stirring off," some milk and the
whites of several eggs being added to it.
Thus prepared it was placed over slow fire,
and kept just below boiling-point until the
sediment and all foreign matters in it floated
| to the top and were removed, when it be-
came deliciousy translucent. 1t was now
exposed to greater heat and gently boiled,
the evaporation continuing, and bringing 1t
nearer to point of granulation. Now the
sugar.maker was all watchfulness and it
Jared ill with those who distracted him, for
if the golden liquid seething in the kettle
boiled the least bit too much it would be-
come dry in quality, while if it boiled too
little, it would become "soggy."' He tested
it constantly, plucking threads of it from
his stirring stick, and trailing them round
in cups of cold water. While the threads
yielded waxily to the touch, the sugar was
not yet done, but as soon as one broke crisp
between his fingers, the moment had come
to take the kettle off the fire. AS the sugar
began to cool, it crystalized round the sides,
and gradually the whole mass, under a vig-
orous stirring, became granular. In that
way sugar was made years ago, and when
the sap flowed profusely the operations were
continued through the night, and the fires
cast strange shadows in the woods But in
stead of hut Of logs permanent sugar
house is now built, and furnished with many
elaborate devices to prevent waste and dete-
rioration. Formerly, when the naples were
tapped with an auger, an "elder quill was
inserted in the incision to conduct the sap
| into the trough below; that is a smali piove
, of elder wood about three inches long with
the pith bored out of it, which formed a
tube; but in most orchards to-day galvan-
lied iron spout is used, which has the ad-
r vantage of not souring the sap nor choking
many pores. Everything is "improved."
+ The collections are made with the unvary-
ing order of collections from letter-boxes,
E and if the grove is on hill, and the sugar
: house is in hollow, the sap, as it is gath
e.; cred, is emptied into a "hume," which
quickly conducts it to large reservoir
i, within the building, wherein it is strained
through cloth. A scoop or ladle is as
anachronistic as javelin. From the reser-
5 voir the sap is conducted, as required
through tin pipes into " heater" whence il
passes into a series of iron tubes to be de
livered, after straining in a condition fol-
"sugaring off" Maple sugar as it reaches
e the market is of a clearer color for these i'm.
D provements but there are some who actu.
ally say that the flavor has fallen off, and
that the new patent evaporators are snare
K One change has certainly not been for the
i better, and that is the abandonment OF the
Q social life Of the old camps, which made
sugar.time in the Green Mountains enduring
, memories with those who are now ebbine
away.-Harper's for April.