The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-03-16
AGRICULTURAL.
The Maple Tree and It's Products.

Timothy Wheeler of Waterbury.
who is something of all authority in
the maple sugar business, writes the
Wachman as follows
The belt of land growing the rock
maple, the best adapted for sugar-mak-
and fifty degrees, and it extends from
Maine on the east to the Mississippi
on the west, embracing Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, New York (the
northern parO, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota,
and still further south on ranges of
mountains. Vermont has the credit of
making the best favored sugar. South
of this belt, sugar is not made to prof
it; the climate is warmer and more even
during the spring than ours, rendering
the trees dryer, the sap not running
wnen the tree is tapped. The white
maple will make whittier sugar than the
rock maple, but it will not make so
much. No sap can be obtained from a
maple while in leaf. No sap can flow
from the rock maple even while not in
leaf, without frost. The sap season of
the maple is some six months, while
the tree is destitute of foliage. After
the leaves have fallen and there has
been freeze, with warmth following,
sap will flow if the tree is tapped, but
in the fall of the year the sap is in the
top, not in the body low down, where
we find t in the spring. AT this time
of the year the sap lies near the ground.
More sap can be caught within twelve
feet of the ground than can be caught in
the rest OF the whole tree, no matter
how tall. Sap varies in three respects
in all parts of the tree, and it varies In
the same locality at different seasons of
these six months. The three variations
are color, taste and density. In all open.
changing winter, the sap is capable of
running Gf the tree is tapped) in sec.
tiOnS, the entire length of the tree. But
little sap can be obtained in the spring
from tree tapped thirty feet from the
ground. The most that | have been
able to obtain al this height is eleven
quarts during the entire spring. Al
every ten feet from the ground the coll
or and taste is so marked that it is easily
discernible without even HGbitity to q
failure in ordinary seasons. Sap deep
ems in color as we ascend, and also as
we near the heart. The saccharine
quality and density 90 with color. The
lightest colored sap of the whole tree
(its surface lies near. the ground where
eal t.. and air meet, and as we go toward
the heart of the tree, color increases and
density decreases, but as we go up botl
color and density increase. | am aware
that DIR. Cutting thinks that sap lessons
in sweetness as we ascend, but my ex
periments lead me to the opposite con
clusion. In three successive years
have tapped trees 10 and II feet apar
in four places. one directly above anoth
er, noting the quality, quantity and col
or myself, and then calling the atten
ton of other witnesses to the same facts
all coming to the same conclusion il
every particular. L had thought OF let
ting these experiments settle this poin
in my own mind, but, since learnin!
that SO careful student of nature as on
state geologist has arrived at the OPP
posite conclusion, am tempted to tr'
again, though there is much labor ant
) risk in the operation.