News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1900-04-04
MAPLE SUGAR.
A Timely Subject Near and Dear to the
Tastes of All.

Tastes of All.
No one knows who discovered the
possibility of making sugar from the
sap of the maple tree. Students Of
Indian traditions seem TO agree that
the origin of this art dates back to
remote antiquity, and that, like the
cookery OF maize, the early European
settlers learned from the Indians how
to transform the watery Juice OF the
maple into sugar. This was the only
sweet the Indians knew, and though
their methods of manufacture were
less appetizing than those followed
in the sugar camps to-day, still the
result was stuff GENTLY satisfactory to
induce the white man to go and do
likewise.
The maplecrop ofthe United States
is not a large one, yet it Is estimated
to allow from a half pound to
pound of sugar yearly tor every per-
son in the country. Northern New
England. New York, Michi gan, Wis
consin, Ohio and Indiana are the
States which produce the most syrup
and sugar. Nearly half of the entire
supply comts from Vermont, and
about one quarter from Ohio, and
both these states have severe fines
for adulteration.
Much of what is sold as maple
syrup and sugar gets its maple flavor,
if it has any, by boiling maple chips
with the brown sugar and glucose OF
which it is composed. Some OF the
leading manufacturers of the real ar
ticle are almost discouraged at try
ing to compete with such frauds.
Consumers should be wise enough to
investigate the source of their supply,
or at least to know that maple sugar
cannot be bought at brown sugar
prices.
Will Carlton has thus described the
sugar maple:-
"The handsome trees! they used to rise
Like they we're huntin' for the skiesl
All summer they would kind O. seem
To wake an sleep an dream;
Their leaves were fresh as fields o grass
For clouds to step on as they pass;
While in their language soft an low,
They seemed to whisper to an fro;
An every sweetest wind that blew,
An every drop of heavens dew,
An every flower that blossomed near,
An every bird a-singin' here,
Through all the blessed summer would
Just gather up what sweet they could,
An then, it aPays 'peared to me,
Present it to some maple treel"
John Burroughs says that sugar
making is one of the most pictures
que features of farm life peculiar to
this country, and further:-"Before
the bud swells, before the grass
springs, before the plough is started,
comes the sugar harvest. 1t is the
sequel of the bitter frost. A sap run
is the sweet good-by of winter. 1t
denotes a certain equipoise of the
season; the heat of the day fully bal
ances the night.-A day that brings
the bees out of the hive will bring the
sap out of the maple tree; it is the
fruit of the equal marriage ofthe sun
and frost. When the frost is all out
of the ground and the snow is gone
from it's surface, the flow stops.
"Maple sugar 10 it's perfection is
rarely seen, perhaps never seen in the
market; it has a mild delicacy OF
flavor thatno other sweet can match.
What you smell in freshly cut maple
wood, or taste in the blossom of the
tree, is in it,"
Charles Dudley Warner describes
sugar-making in the past as "Some-
thing between picknicking and being
ship-wrecked on a fertile island, where
one could save from the wreck tubs,
and augers, and great kettles, and
pork, and hens eggs, and rye and
Indian brown bread, and begin at
once the sweetest life in the world"