The San Saba news. [volume] (San Saba, Tex.) 1873-1966, 1889-07-12
MAPLE SUGAR.
iEy- AND OLD METHODS OF MAX
ING TILE SWEET.
The Average Yield is Three Pounds
OF Sugar to a Tree-A View
OF the old-Fashioned
Sugar Party.

a leIler lIOm MdltfIOWu, N IL 10
the New York Times, says that there are
some interesting things about sugarmak-
ing. The old residents do not have to
rack their memories very much to recall
time when almost everybody up this
ay depended on the maple trees for
weet stuffs. That was before the days of
.ilroads, when cane sugar was hard to
It, and every farmer tapped the maple
ses on his farm. Now the business is
ried on by those who have large sugar
;hards, and only about one farmer out
very twenty bothers with it. Some
garmakers in this section gather the sap
m as many as 1000 trees, and send to
ket several tons of maple sugar an
ly. In an extra good season five
ads of sugar to the tree is made, but
= is big yield. The average is about
three pounds to each tree. The manner in
which the sweets are gathered in these large
orchards is quite astonishing to the old
time sugarmakers, who used to carry on
the work in a very primitive way. The
cid timers began by catching the sap in
wooden troughs which were made from
small trees with much labor, as they had
to be followed out with an axe, and then
charred over an open fire to prevent the
sap from running out through the pores
Of che wood An augur was used In tap
nS6s,and wooden spiles were driven in
BE- The zap was-s'ssFflea- by hard
tessne boiling place, where it was evapo-
rated In large iron kettles swung up on a
crane over an open fire. The modern
sugarmaker looks TO the economy of
things and makes the work easy. Instead
of an augur and wooden spiles, he uses a
patent galvanized iron Spite and tin
bucket. The spite is driven into the tree
with half dozen blows of a heavy NAL
let, and the augur is dispensed
with. The bucket is suspehed
from the side of the tree by nail
made for the purpose. Smooth roads
though the orchard in every direction
Nv it to be traversed by team, so
the sap is all drawn ON asleigh, and
~ man has little to do except pour it
Om the bucket on the tree into the re-
Giving tank on the two-horse conveyance. |
Astead of kettles, shallow sheet-iron pans
in an arch are used in evaporation.
he arch economies fuel, and the pans
4orten the process of evaporation about
She-half. An automatic feeder keeps up |
3e supply of sap in the pans. As this part
tf the work is done in snug building
greeted for the purpose, instead of in the
4pen air, nearly all the hardships incident
b old-time sugarmaking are done away
with The people who used to carry sap
long distances in pals suspended on
yoke, like japanese porters, and afterward
boiled it in the open air, exposed to all the
inclemencies of the season, call the present |
way Of making sugar a mere pastime.
Another feature of sugarmaking fifty
or sixty years ago, which is now absent,
is the good old-fashioned sugar party. |
Those were joyous times when, in re-
Spouse to an invitation, all the neighbors
for mile or more around would gather
in a farmers ''sap bush" to attend the
''sugaring Off and fill their jackets with 1
warm sugar. All of the boys and girls, /
as well as the married folks, attended |
these frolics, and four feet of snow, with /
a cutting March wind, never kept them
at home. When a party of this sort as
semhled around the ''boiling place" there |
was music in the air until the syrup had |
been reduced to q consistency where it /
w9nld harden whe3 popTsd o. ten q q f a
member of the party would give his or
her undivided attention to ball of s'jack-
wax" big enough for two of the most
voracious candy eaters of the present day. |
When the sugar had been stirred in the /
kettle until it was partially cooled and !
nicely grained, it followed the ojackwaxn /
until all had fairly gorged themselves.
To this day it is a mystery among the old /
how they managed to eat so
much sugar and not make themselves
sick. One of them in speaking to the
writer OF old times expressed a willing
ness to give up all his earthly possessions
if he could live over the days when he
used to carry home a ball of ''jackwax"
on a chip TO the brothers and sisters who
were too small to go out in the sugar
bush There are thousands, no doubt,
who will echo the sentiment.