Richland beacon., 1888-06-16
THE MAPLE SUGAR CAMPS.
WOOD LORE FROM THE LAND OF
THE SUGAR TREE.
When the Tree Should be Tapped =
How the Sweet Sap is Made Into
Saccharine Substance

b
How the Sweet Sap is Made Into
Saccharine Substance.
A Harrisburg letter to the New York
YriIune says that Pennsylvania farmers
manufacture over 1900, 600 pounds of
maple sugar every spring. The work is
simple, though tedious. The sugar
farmer has discovered many curious facts
about the maple and its sap. For the
sap to run freely there must be we'll
mingled conditions of heat cold and
light. A still and dry. yet dense At
blowing, is the best for sap running.
That is the weather referred to by the
farmer in his saying: "When fires burn
best then sap runs best When the
ground thaws during the day and freezes
at night, and there is plenty of snow
in the woods. sap weather" ia prime.
A heavy snow storm during the sap sea
son, follwed by freeze and thaw, will
make the owner of a sugar bush happy.
"A few trees will produce as much sap
Us good many is an anomalous saying
of the sugar farmer. 1t means that trees
standing close together divide the aggre-
gate flow made possible by the extent of
soil they cover, which aggregate would
be as great if there were half as many
trees draining the spot. Night sap, or
sap that runs at night, will make more
sugar than the same quantity yielded
during the day. Sar contains more
saccharine subsistence when caught either
immediately before or Just after a snow
storm or freeze-up. A tree tapped high
Will give sweeter sap, than one tapped
low, but the low tapt.will yield the
largest quantity. A shallow tap will fetch
from the tree sweeter SAP. and one that
will produce whittier and better grained
sugar than a deep tap, but the deep tap
will yield the most molasses. Sap starts
just on the south side of the t>ee, and
runs much sweeter than sap from the
north side, but sap will run a longtime
from the north side of the tree aftes 1t
has ceased running on the south side.
As soon as the sap starts in the trees ths
naples are tapped, iron spi!es driven in
the holes and a covered bucket hung 10
each one. In the old days the spile was
an elder with the pith punched out, and
the receptacle for the sap was either "A
trough hewn out of a birch block or an
ordinary pail. The sap falls from the
spiles drop by drop, and so slowly that it
seems as if a pail full would never be
obtained; but on the contrary the trees
have to be watched very closely, as the
pals fill in remarkably short time, and
the little drops of liquid sugar will be
running over the, rim of the pail before
the stranger would think it possible As
soon as pail is filed it is lifted from the
spile and emptied into large barrel with
a top like a big funnel. This barrel is
securely attached to q rude sled or wagon,
and is drawn about the bush, from tree to
tree. by mildmannered and easy going
horse, driven by youth especially
selected for his patience and carefulness,
for the rounds of the camp must be made
in slow and cautious manner. There
are logs and stumps and pitfalls and
snowbanks lying in wait for the sap-col-
lecting Establishment, and the driver must
be constantly on his guard to circumvent
all these. An upset in the bush with a
cargo of sap aboard lowers driver in the
estimate of his fellows, and it is a great
feather in his cap if he comes out when
the season is over with a clean record on
that score.
When the rounds of the trees are made,
the big barrel is filled with sap and is
taken to the sugar house or boiling shed.
There it is emptied into vats, beneath
which steady fire is kept burning. As
the sap boils in the vats it Is kept con-
stantly agitated by those having charge
Of that p-rt OF the work, who use long
hop t,1 laI t. Lo
most interesting part of maple-sugar
but it is at the same time the
most distressing. The damp wood
beneath the boiling watts,
acted upon by the riotous wind, sends up
dense clouds of suffocating smoke. The
stirrer chokes, freezes and burns by turns,
according to the whim and the tempera-
ture of the wind and the combustible
qualities of the wood in the fire. The
same wind that can provide all of these
also frequently fetches with
it few bushels of last yeai IS dead leaves,
picked up in its frolic, and distributes
them Unfortunately in the boiling sap
and over the patient stirrers. These dis
however, never attend sap
boiling in the northeastern counties of
the State, where the sugar houses are en-
closed and well-appointed.
After boiling in one vat until certain
conditions are brought about, which the
sugar makers skill detects at the proper
time, the sap is run into another vat,
a strainer, and then the boiling
is continued. When proper consistency /
is reached in the second vat the sap is
ready for sugaring off. A few farmers
in Western Pennsylvania have their boil
ing houses so equipped that the last pro-
cess may be gone through with on the
premises, but generally the waiting
syrup is loaded in barrels and conveyed (
to the farm houses, where the farm wives
and their daughters take charge of it
and sugar off," 1t is placed in huge |
boilers. on stoves arranged for the pur-
pose, where it boils and bubbles aud re- /
duces itself, under the shillful manipula-
ton and superintendent of the house /
wife. The tests of the different stages 4
Of the syrup as it is slowly transformed /
into sugar are the same to-day as they /
were the first day maple sugar was made /
"a spoonful of syrup on plate Of snow, /
or dropped into bowl of cold spring or 4
well water. The work of sugaring off
requires the greatest skill and the most
attention. If syrup is wanted,
the quick eye of the farmers wife de- /
tects the stage known as the "buck-
grains form under this test. The syrup
10 then turned into earthen jugs. When /
the boiling shows the advance of the