The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-04-25
oLD-TlME SUGAR MAKING.
Scenes In and About kn OId-FashIoned
Sugar Camp.

iVCHlnS dI ulSuI, LudWluS anu sup
ping by day, recalls the scenes and
fashions of a day long past, when
'home-made sugar"-we never called
it maple" nor misnamed the tree that
way, except by Yankee inculcatiqn-
was not fancy CONNECTION, luxury be-
yond the "barber-pole" candy of in
fancy, but necessity, when Orleans
sugar was not to be had, or was too ex-
pensiye for the poor in pocket, as many
q rich man of to-day was in that day.
The free-handed householder laid in his
years stock of sugar by the time the
h apple trees are in bloom, at the latest,
and frequently before the frost was well
out of the ground. 1t deteriorated in
the close chests-the protection against
ants aud tlies-Or in cloth headed bar
rels and lost much of the peculiar flavor
of the early product. 1t got musty and
weak to the sweet TOOTH, though pos
sibly not to the tea. For cooking it
I was never 50 good as the can product.
( 1t did not mix well, and left black spots
of undiftused sugar that variegated the
taste Of cake too gaudily. In mOlasses
it was best, and it is still unmatched for
pancakes and fritters and all table use.
No syrup equals it, no honey of hive or
hand rivals it for these uses. The de
mand for it has manufactured q score
of limitations, but they can't fool the
4 tongue that has been taught in the era
die the taste of the essence of dew, dis
titled through ten million tubes in the
sugar tree.
When the sugar seasonal movable
feast, like Easter on, sometimes
early in February, sometimes early in
| March, but usually between the two
the owner of q sugar camp"-somo
few untutored or overtutored noodles
call it sugar brush" he would, with
the customary wastefulness of back
woods habits, 90 out with his AK and
| chop fresh cuts in old trees and new
cuts in fresh trees, to collect the water
IN. One primitive fashion was to slope
q cut four or five inches into the body
Of the tree q foot or more up, and
scooped at the bottom into rude little
trough, from which tho water was
| dipped as fast as it gathered sufficiently
to be reached This was wastcful every
| way, and sensible farmers, after cutting
little notch, would bore hole a
couple Of inches or 50 deep and drive in
a Spite Of elder with the pith punched
| out. In time, though, the notch was
abandoned and the hole bored directly
through the bark, and tin tubes substi-
tuted in some cases for the elder spilGs
Sugar troughs" made of cut two or
three feet long, of a log foot or more
in diameter split in half sometimes and
followed out to hold couple of gallons
or SO, were in general use, but they
were Wasteful and those who could af-
ford money Letter than muscle bought
| crooks and buckets. These were emp
tied, and sometimes by hand, sometimes
by sleds or wagons carrying tubs, the
water was taken to the kettles at rounds
made al regular intervals.
The primitive furnace long remained
probably in many places yet remains
in use, and that was couple of big logs
dozen feet long and a foot or two in
diameter laid parallel and far enough
apart to make room for fair pile of
fuel between them. On these the ket-
| tles-sometimes two or three, or more,
owing to the number of trees tapped
were set, and the water boiled down,
added to as it went down and still
boiled down till it grew thick and
slab" and then the fragrance that was
on the passing breeze through the grove
could have discounted "nard and cas-
sia's balmy smells" Pungent, inviting
suggestive, it is the bouquet" of our
backwoods nectar, and commonly sur
rounded by blooming hebes of the cabin
and kitchen. The ftful flashes of fire,
tempered to the bubbling of the kettles,
which, unguarded, sometimes boiled
over, lit up the woods about with a
somber g low that gave the streaks Of
snow, the bare boughs of the trees, the
! gray trunks and the brown leaves at
| their roots a sort of diabolical, CORY
| look, as if a CLEAN of Pandemonium
came through some crack or knot-hole;
and the figures standing over the ket-
'ogs might have been mistaken by eyes
lntaught of the keener perceptions of
the nose, for lazy devils loahng about a
fire they hadn't energy enough to keep
from going out.
The scenes Of sugar camp, however,
were anything but s0mber in spirit,
whatever the light upon them. There
wasn't much idling, and there was
always fun. If the camp owners had
! families, and the backwoodsman with
out one was a wonder. the young folks
made frolic of the work of stirring
off, or granting the sugar. The name
was eminently descriptive. To keep the
sugar from solidifying into mass Of
impenetrable candy it had to be inces-
sanity stirred, and the work was too
hard for anybody to endure long at a
time. But as Shakespeare might have
said, and did nearly say, the fun phys
licked the pain" The manager. man
or woman, frequently tested the condi-
ton of the syrup by pouring spoonful
into ''gourd' of cold sugar water ard
noticing its 'ropiness," its rapidity of
cooling, its tendency to grain" and
thereby Judging when it was necessary
to reduce the fire or put it out. And
all the while the stirring off" went
briskly on with many a laugh, and
giggle and squeal of girlish glee or
boyish frolic. Egg shells were willed
with the ungrained denser syrup, to
cool into Jumps as hard as "dornicks, :"
or cast into the mold OF teacups CREASED
with butter or clean lard to keep it
from sticking, or rudely nodded into