The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-02-09
AT SUGARING TIME.
THE SWEETEST SEASON OF THE YEAR
ON ST. LAWRENCE FARMS.
How the Sap Was Gathered In Troughs
and Boiled In Potash Kettles In the
Days of Our Daddies-An That Is Changed

What memories of boyhood days at the
| old farm homestead are awakened thereby
The long reign of winter is at last broken.
| The snow is yet deep on the ground, but
the climbing sun and the winds of March
| are beating 1t down with steady persist
ency. A few stray robins have returned
| and chirp cherrily around the farmhouse
as the bright spring morning breaks. The
| crows are cawing over the hills or holding
| their noisy congresses in the cedar swamps.
| All day long there Is a steady drip from
| the caves, which In the morning are
| fringed with glittering icicles. There is
freezing by night and thawing by day,
and this is 'sugarin time" In this lati-
| tude the sugar making season usually be-
| gins about the middle of March and lasts
| until the middle of April. Although
maple sugar is made TO a limited extent in
many different states, northern New
York produces n large share of the entire
output of the country, and it is TO the
maple groves along these foothills of the
Adirondacks that the jewellers In the cities
look mainly for their pancake trimmings.
The primitive methods of sugar making
practiced hereabout in our boyhood days
have now given way to modern improve
ments. The old fashioned sugar camp was
very different from the comfortable boil
ing house of today. TO begin with, it was
right out of doors, with maple tree trunks
for walls, their budding branches for raft
ers and the blue sky for a ceiling. 1t was
located as near the center of the sugar
bush" as possible, and here the great
caldron kettles were suspended by log
chains to long and strong green beech
poles
frhaca ba loo, Io1
were balanced on the top of convenient
stumps and held in place by a wooden pin
or pivot SO that a man at the longer end
of sweep could easily raise the heavy
potash kettle and swing it away from the
fire. When the kettles were all swung into
line foot or so apart, the OK team snaked
a huge elm back log alongside the cal
drons, while smaller fore log was rolled
into place opposite. Them with unmeas-
ured heaps of cordwood piled between, the
great potash kettles FUSED in yet earlier
days to render "black satisfy would soon
be rapidly boiling down the sap, occasion
ally threatening to boil over and spill their
sweet contents but calming down on be-
ing fed scrap of greasy bacon rind. More
or less ashes and charcoal got into the ket-
ties from the fire, while an occasional dry
leaf was blown in by the March zephyrs or
a few beech nuts were contributed by the
scampering red squirrels in the branches
overhead. This, with the bacon rind, had
tendency to give the sugar deep rich
tint and a dark brown taste, but it was
"healthy."
In those good old days the trees were
'boxed" with an axe and tapped with a
gouge for the insertion of q long wooden
Spite. A good deal of the sap leaked
around the Spite and was wasted and the
rest was caught in clumsy maple sap
trough or ash hoped sap bucket. The
sap was gathered by hand in those good
old days and after heavy run" the
sugar maker had to wade through the deep
and heavy snow back and forth from each
tree in the bush to the sugar camp gather
ing the amber blood of the maple trees
with "a sap yoke and emptying the drip
ping buckets into the steaming kettles, to
return and gather another turn -
But, although laborious work, tho joys
of sugar making were many. 1t was
pleasant TO sit by the roaring fire after the
sap was all gathered in, and while watch
ing the great kettles to listen to the chat
ter of the squirrel among the naples or the
drumming of the partridge in the ever
green's, and in the evening, when the con-
tents of the kettles were thickening into
rich golden strip, it was pleasant to tend
the caldrons, while the little space of fire.
light around was walled in with the thick
darkness of the woods and the spectral
trunks of the tall trees. and the hooting of
the owl or the barking of the distant farm
dog was the only sound to break the still
ness. The browning Joy of the season,
however, was the 'sugaring off, when
the strip which the caldrons contained
at the end of a heavy run" of sap was all
put into one kettle, with mixture of milk
and eggs added to gather the impurities
heretofore limited at and cleanse the batch,
and when, over slow fire, the golden
strip was converted into sugar. When the
strip in the kettle got to the proper con-
sistency, SO that film of 1t on twig
would depend unbroken like Leather
apron, ;" the kettle was swung away from
the fire, and all hands reveled in the de-
lights of warm sugar. 1t was ''waxed'
on snow banks, stirred until graduated as
white as chalk, or poured into empty egg
shells, and thus formed into maple sugar
plums. All the neighboring boys and
girls were on hand to help sugar off"
and after the batch was poured into the
family sugar tub to granulate the youths
and maidens wandered through the woods
to gather slippery elm bark, or sought the
first spring flowers along some sunny
southern slope from which the snow banks
had retreated and the rustic SWANS, with
their trusty jackknives, carved their own
and their sweethearts' initials upon the
smooth bark of the old beech that lowered
above the sugar camp.
How changed Is all this now. Where
the old sugar camp, with its rows of cal
drons, stood in days of yore is now an up
to date boiling place, with brick arches,
under cover, and adjoining small snug
frame house, where all the appliances for
sugar making are stored. The arch is top
ped with a tall brick chimney, to insure a
good draft, and is fitted with broad, shall
low iron pans, or, if strictly up to date,
with patent evaporation, which is as
much ahead of the common pan as the pan
| is ahead of the old potash kettle.-Canton
| IN. " Commercial Advertiser.
"A Particular Boarder.
wiggles-Tbo glass eater mt one of the
dime museums is staying at our boarding
house inst noV