The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-07-02
Sugar-Making in Northern Vermont.
ny RYRARRAYR.

by EIEhkhAhE
Sugar-making among us is pro-
gressive art, and perfection is long
however, has been made during the !
past few years, and probably could the
manufacturers of century ago inspect
the apparatus now used and sample the
product as syrup or sugar in fancy cakes
they would think we had really arrived
at that desirable stage. In their day
the naples were tapped with an axe 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 series
of open cast-iron kettles arranged on
a long pole out of doors. An unavoid-
able result of such exposure was free
admixture of leaves, bark and cinders,
which, together with the protracted
boiling, gave the final cakes (molded
in bowls, pans, basins, ETC. }, a complex
ion varying in shade from that of" June
training gingerbread to that of the
kettle in which they were compounded,
and a corresponding flavor-a flavor not
wholly saccharine There was no
market in those days, the sugar being
an article of barter like shingles or
petry, and exchangeable for the timer
ant Dealers tinware or the goods of the
village merchant. At the present time
in this part of the maple sugar region it
is difficult to find farmer owning
sugar place of even 300 trees that is not
supplied with shanty, evaporator, an
abundance of storage and sound buck
cts, and when the crop is a failure it is
in these hard times a serious matter
Here sugaring usually opens about the
Goth of March, and for the next month
or six weeks business is lively. 1t be-
ing 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 90 in company, one boring
the trees, the other driving the spouts
and hanging the buckets. Some hang
E them on a nail, but a malleable iron
spout having a hook attached, thus
combining utensils, saves time and in
convenience, spares the tree one wound,
and, is in the writer's opinion, on every
account preferable. For 1000 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 conveyed through rubber
hose and an automatic " FEEDER" regu-
lating the stream according to the rapid
ity of the evaporation, into the boiling
apparatus, which, in this section, is
usually the latest improved evapOrator.
One of these, fifteen feet in length
having a dozen transverse partitions
and as many compartments opening
into one another at opposite ends-the
sap zizzaging through from front tC
rear-will easily dispose of all that two
men with team each and drawing
tubs " of thirty-fve-pail capacity car
gather" and do it, too, without boiling
nights, unless the run should con
tinue night and day for week at
time, as it sometimes does. Such oc
casions are very severe for all con
cerned, and with snow hip-deep, rain,
= sulky team, inefficient help, poor boil
, ing apparatus, wet wood, either, or al
combined, are sufficient to quite thor
L oughly dispel whatever romantic nc
q tions of the business may have beel
ChlClA dlhCu W uIJ hNApOilChNO'
a, sugar-maker. The syrup, which
- drawn from the evaporator at frequen
:. intervals, is cooled, settled, reheated-
- having been repeatedly strained an
. skimmed-is put up in cans or in bulk
e. weighing eleven pounds per gallon, o
is boiled down to the granulating point
sugared off " in " patches of fit
to seventy-fve or one hundred pound
I in sheet-iron pans, quickly stirred unit
the . grain " is right, and poured int
tin or wooden tubs, to cool and harden
or into wooden mods forming cake
the size of a brick, half-brick, fou
ounces, two ounces, ETC., then packe
and shipped on orders in quantities de
sired, or sent in boxes containing fror
twenty-five to fifty pounds to commits
sion houses, principally Boston firms
or some other market here in NeN
England. Much of it, however-mostl
the tubbed ARTICLES taken by loca
buyers. Sugar, although not our mos
important production, is yet of grea
- value to us. John G.. SaXe-himself on
of Vermont's best products-mentiOn
others with it omen, women, maplt
sugar and horses), saying of them:
1.-THE first are strong, the last are fleet;
III The second and third exceedingly sweet
And all uncommony hard to beat! "
n East Fletcher VT