The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-15
OLD-TIME SUGAR MAKING.
The Season atHand When the Sap Starts
in the Sugar-Producing Maple.
Scenes In and About an Fashioned Sugar
Camp-Sticky "reminiscences of .Stir-
ring OFF, Times.

This regular typical sugar weather. freezing
at night thawing and stopping by day, recalls
the scenes and fashions of day long past,
when ''home- sugar'-we never called it
maple" nor misnamed the tree that way, except
by Yankee inculcation-was not a fancy con-
lection, luxury beyond the "barberpole
candy of infancy, but a necessity, when
Orleans" sugar was not to be had, or too
extensively for the poor in pocket, as many a
rich man of to-day was in that day. The free
handed householder laid in his years stock
of sugar by the time the apple trees
were in bloom, at the latest, and frequently be-
fore the frost was well out of the ground. 1t
deteriorated in the close chests-the protection
against ants and fiies-or in cloth headed bar
rels, and lost much of the peculiar favor Of the
early product 1t got musty and weak to the
"sweet TOOTH though possibly not to the tea.
For cooking it was never SO good as the cane
product 1t did not mix well, and left black
spots Of undiffused sugar that variegated the
taste of cake too gaudily. In molasses it was
best, as it is still unmatched for pan
cakes and frtters and all table use.
No syrup equals it; no honey
The demand for it has manufactured score of
limitations, but they can't fool the tongue that
has been taught in the cradle the taste of the
essence of dew, distilled through ten million tubes
in the sugartree.
When the sugar season. movable feast"
like Easter-came on, sometimes early in Feb
ruary, sometimes early in March, but usually
be tween the two, the owner of sugar camp
some few untutored or overtutored noodles call
it sugar brush"-he would, with the customary
wastefulness of backwoods habits, go cut 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 a cut four or five
inches into the body of the tree foot or more
up, and scooped at the bottom into rude little
trough, from which the water was dipped as fast
as it gathered sufficiently to be reached This
was wasteful every way, and sensible farmers,
after cutting little notch, would bore a hole
couple of inches or so Deep and drive in Spite
of elder with the pth punched out In time,
though the notch was abandoned,
and the hole bored directly through the
bark, and tin tubes substituted in some
cases for the elder spiles. Sugar troughs"
made of a cut two-or three feet long. of log
foot or more in diameter, split in half sometimes,
and followed out to hold a couple of gallons or
So were in general use, but they were wasteful,
and those who could afford money better than
muscle bought crooks and buckets These were
emptied, and sometimes by hand sometimes by
sleds or wagons carrying tubs, the water was
taken to the kettles at ROUNDS made at regular
intervals
IL
ably in many places yet remains-n use, and
that was couple of big logs dozen feet long,
and foot or two in diameter laid parallel and
far enough apart to make room ror fair pile of
fuel between them. On these the kettle-some-
times two, or three, or more, owing to the num-
Der 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
smells" Pungent, inviting, suggestive, it was the
''bouquet" of our backwoods nectar, and com
monty surrounded by blooming Hebes of the
cabin and the kitchen. The fitful flashes of fire,
tempered to the bubblng of the kettles which, un-
guarded, sometimes boiled over lit up the woods
about with somber glow 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 CLEAN Of Pande-
monium came through some crack or knot hole;
and the figures standing over the kettles
or seated on the end Of the furnace-logs might
have been mistaken by eyes untaught of the
keener perceptions Of the nose, for lazy devils
loafing about fire they hadn't energy enough to
keep from going out Comparison TO Macbeths
witches and Rembrandt's pictures deferred by
particular request Of many subscribers.i The
smen of the ripening sugar would dspel that
fancy.
The scenes of sugar-cam however, were
anything but sombre in spirit whatever the light
upon them. There wasn't much idling and
there was always fun. IL the camp
owners had families, and the backwoodsman
without was wonder, the young folks
made froc of the work of stirring off,
granting the sugar The name was eminently
descriptive. To keep the sugar from solidifying
into mass of impenetrable candy it had to be
necessarily stirred, and the work was too hard
for anybody to endure long at time. But as
Shakespeare might have said and did nearly say
the fun ''physicked the PAIN The manager,
man or woman. frequently tested the condition
of the syrup by pouring a spoonful into "gourd'
of cold sugar water and noticing its 'roDiness,n
its rapidty 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 ''strring Off went
briskly on, with many laugh, and giggle, and
squeal of girlish gee or boyish frolc. Egg
shells were filled with the ungrained denser syr
up, to cool into Jumps as hard as ''dornicks," or
cast into the mould of teaeups creased with but
ter or clean hard to keep it from sticking, or
fuQely UOlu6u lubO SOul6 uIltOulu IOrul or lOfm-
less chunk. Hands, and hair, and sleeves got
sticky, drops of sugar fell on the clothing, and
cooled and stuck like paint Everybody went
home from stirringoff in mess of mis-
placed molasses. But it was better fun than
skating rink, and it made money, too.
Most Of the sugar woods anywhere near the
city have long been gone in smoke, and ashes,
and heat that has mixed with the universe of cor
related forces When one thinks of the unmiti-
gated folly of cutting down sugar trees for fire.
wood as long as ANYTHING else that would burn
could be had, ii seems as if part of Carlyles
cynical snarl at thirty millions of
people, mostly FOOLS" were fair hit.
The result is that genuine Country
sugar." homemade sugar" maple sugar is as
hard to ceme by as Democrat who doesn't want
an Office The limitations, as previously sug
gested are many, and some are skillful and de-
lusve to the lndifferently educated taste of one
who never made saw made the genuine arti-
Gle: and it needs long sighted prophecy or