News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-07-24
ADVERTISING RATES.
RATE PER YEAR,
sugar-Making in Northern Vernon

Sugar-Making in Northern Vernon
Sugar-making among us is a pro-
gressive art, and perfection is long
way out of sight. Much improve
ment, however, has been made during
the past few years, and probably
could the manufacturers of "a century
ago inspect the apparatus now used
and sample the product as syrup or
sugarin fancy cakes they would think
we had really arrived at that desir-
able stage. In their day the naples
were tapped with an ak or gouge,
the sap conveyed in open sheet-iron
spouts to achieved troughs set on
the ground, the subsequent boiling
and sugaring-off being done in a Sc
ries of open cast-iron kettles arranged
on a long pole out of doors. An un-
avoidable result of such exposure was
a free admixture OF leaves, bark and
cinders, which, together with the pro-
tracted boiling, gave the final cakos
(molded in bowls, pans, basins, etc. }
a complexion varying ia shadt ION
thatof 7" June training gingrI-bicaG
to that of the kettle in which they
were compounded, and a correspond
ing fiavor-a flavor not wholly sac
charine There was no market in
those days, the sugar beingan article
OF barter, like shingles or peliry, and
exchangeable for the itinerant deal
er's tin-ware or the goods of the vii
lage merchant. At the present time
IN this part of the maple sugar region
it is difficult to find a farmer owning
a sugar-place of over 300 trees that
is not supplied with shanty, evapo-
rater, an abundance OF storage and
sound buckets, and when the crop is
failure it is in these hard times a
serious matter. Here sugaring usu-
ally opens about the Goth of March.
and for the next month or six weeks
business is lively. 1t being an object
to secure the first "run," as the first
sugar made is usually the finest in
quality and commands the highest
price, at the first indication of spring
the buckets are scattered" and
tapping" commences. Two men
generally go in company, one boring
the trees, the other driving the spouts
and hanging the buckets. Some hang
them on a nail, but q malleable iron
spout having a hook attached, thus
combining utensils, saves time and
inconvenience, spares the tree one
wound, and, is in the writer's opinion.
on every account preferable. For
900 trees storage to the amount of
300 pailfuls at least is required. This
is IN several large tubs, so arranged
that the sap will flow from one to
another-or, better STILL an immense
wooden vat-from which it is convey
ed through a rubber hose and an
automatic feeder" regulating the
stream according to the rapidity of
the evaporation, into the boiling ap-
paratus, which, in this section, is us
ually the latest improved evapora-
tor. One of these, fifteen feet in
length, having n dozen transverse
partitions and as many conipart-
ments opening into one another at
opposite ends-the sap zigzagging
| through from front to rear-will ca
| silly dispose of all that two men with
| a team each and " drawing-tubS" of
| thirty-ffve paH capacity can gath
| err and do it, too, without boiling
nights, unless the "run " should con-
tinue night and day for a week at a
time, as it sometimes does. Such oc-
casions are very severe for all con-
cerned, and with snow hip-deep, rain,
boiling apparatus. wet wood, either,
or all combined, are sufficient to quite
thoroughly dispel whatever romantic
notions of the business may have been
entertained by any inexperienced
The syrup, which is
drawn from the evaporator at fire.
quent intervals, is cooled, settled,
eheated-having been repeatedly
and skimmed-is put up in
cans or in bulk, weighing eleven
pounds per gallon, or is boiled down
to the granulating point, "sugal ed
off, in "batches " of fifty to seventy
i've or one hundred pounds in sheet
ron pans, quickly stirred until the
: grain +" is right, and poured into tin
Or wooden tubs, to cool and harden
Or wooden molds forming cakes the
size of brick, half brick, four ounces,
two ounces, etc, then packed and
shipped on orders in quantities desir-
I'd, or sent in boxes containing from
twenty-five to fifty pounds to COM
mission houses, principally Boston
firms, or some other market here in
New England. Much of il. however
mostly the tubbed arti, le-is taken
by local buyers. Sugar, although
not our most important production,
is yet of great value to u. John g.
Saxe-himsef one of Vermont best
producers-mentions Others with it
linen, women, maple sugar and
horses,) saying of them:
The first are strong, the last are feet;
The second and third exceedingly sweet,
And all uncommonly hard to heatl"
EAREAvE.
East Fletcher, Vt.