Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-19
Eursttng 0qat

James McLaurie. formerly a resi-
dent of Middletown and now in
charge of maple sugar operations in
New York state and along the
northern border of Pennsylvania,
was in Harrisburg yesterday on his
way from Baltimore to the sugar
camps. McLaurie is an expert. He
knows maple sugar as most men
know their alphabet. and he says
that maple sugar is going to be more
plentiful the coming year than ever
before, but that the price will not
be much more or less than 1T has
been for the past several years.
THE present prolonged thaW has
been a great thing for the maple
sugar industry" said Mr.. McLaurie
to u Telegraph reporter yesterday.
Few people realize that New York
and Pennsylvania alone manufacture
hundreds of thousands of pounds
of this dainty and that the Industry
has grown greatly during the past
few years. l think 1T has great
future"
Maple sugar making is one of the
few industries the early settlers
learned from the Indians which has
been handed down to us" said the
speaker. when the settlers came
into PENNSYLVANIA and New York
state they found the Indians making
maple sugar cakes and maple syrup.
Their methods were very crude but
the results were so satisfactory that
the settlers soon learned the art and
thereby made themselves indepen-
dent of the sugar imports OF
course store sugar was just as
eagerly sought then as now by the
| folks who have more than enough
maple sugar to meet their wants,
but there was no hardship if per-
| chance the settler and his family
were caught far from the settle
ments or one or another of the nu-
merous wars of those days cut OIL
| the imported sugar supply for the
! season. OF course, we do not make
maple sugar commercially the way
the Indians made 1t, or even a1ter
| the manner of the early settlers
who spoiled about as much as they
r1ade and ruined hundreds of trees
! Our work is all done with the idea
of conserving the trees and making
| them produce only so much sap
each as they can spare with satety
to themselves. We bore the trees
on one side where the sun is sure to
strike the incision, with a halt-inch
bore to about two-inches in depth,
and keeping the hole clean so that
the sap flows freely, and this we
catch in metal buckets and eVapo-
rate partly and finally boil until we
get syrup, following the usual
method of reducing the residue to
sugar when sugar is desired. 1t IS
complicated process and must be
done with great care to get the best
results. One tree will yield from
ten to forty gallons of sap season,
depending upon its size and the rich
ness of the soil about it. l venture
to say that two-thirds of the farms
| of Pennsylvania contain sugar
maple trees and l am surprised that
more farmers do not utilize them.
! You might pass this along to the
State Agricultural Department,
which understand already has done
something along this line
The Juniata valley counties are
taking an interest in the forthcom-
ing award of the State College
scholarships named in honor OF
Hugh Nelson McAllister, one of the
famous ones of that part of the
state, by his daughter, Mrs. T. r.
Hays, of Bellefonte. The scholar
ships this year go to Center Juni-
/
counties. which show the highest
ratio of students enrolled in the col
! lege to the total population of the
counties.
| 1t takes more than a shutdown of
the water department to stop C. Lin
ford Scott, superintendent of the
| Harrisburg Manufacturing and Boil
| er Works. When the order came a
| few weeks ago to shut down all in
dustrial plans using city water the
boiler works was busy turning out
| important government orders and
then as your Uncle Samuel is a rath-
er insistent gentleman he informed
the management it mustn't let a
i little thing like a water famine stand
in the way. On the other hand the
| City Council was just as insistent that
it would cause the arrest of anybody
violating the order. Then it was up
! to Mr.. Scott, who sat down to think
the puzzle over instead of goinghomc
to his evening meal. Suddenly 1t
/ dawned upon him that there once
| had been a skating pond near the
works known as Cashmere and he
knew the water that formerly was
! impounded to produce the pond
must be still flowing somewhere.
A scouting party brought the infor-
nation that the stream was flowing
past the plant about 500 feet to the
east. After that it was a mere mat
ter of pipes and a hastily improvised
ipump-and presto, the factory was
/ in operation while all other were
idle.