The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1922-09-20
Club Woman Makes
Fine Maple Sugar
MRS, C. w. BELVILLE WILL MAKE
UNIQUE DISPLAY AT COUNTY
FAIR NEXT WEEK.

Mrs. &. w. Belville of Sunny Crest
Farm, in Gales township, will
make an unique display at the Red
wood County Fair next week. This
display will consist of maple sugar
Mrs. Belville has made from soft
maple trees in the vicinity of her
home.
Several weeks ago the Gazette
editor visited Sunny Crest and was
given some of the sugar as we'll as
told how it was made. Finding the
story of great interest she asked Mrs.
Belville to tell others, through the
Gazette how she made this unusual
Minnesota product and the story is as
follows. Mrs. Belville is the proof
of the contention that home-making
farm women are greatly interested in
ne work the Women's clubs Of the
state are doing, since she is vice
president of the Federated Clubs of
the Second District.
when Mr.. Belville and I moved to
the farm it was our ambition to raise
as many and as varied products on
our farm as the soil and climate of
the state would permit; this desire
we have gratifed to a considerable
extent and each year we find new
things to try which makes life very
interesting "down on the farm" For
instance this summer I have canned
fully fifty quarts of excellent grape
juice from wild vines l planted less
than SIX years ago along the garden
fence; we think the honey we garner
ed few days ago was superfine and
we often wonder why all farmers do
not keep bee'; so when one of our
neighbors read in his farm paper that
thousands of pounds of excellent sugar
was being lost to the people of the
state every year through their failure
to utilize the soft maple groves of
the state we felt very great interest
in the matter He proceeded to tap
his trees of which he had forty or
more in his grove and soon had a
hogshead full of sap. He offered us
as much Of this sap as we cared to
come for, we were glad to accept his
offer and my husband hauled homo
close to hundred gallons from which
made about twenty pounds of super
fine sugar-and several quarts of
syrup. We did not get to work until
so late in the sap flowing season that
the warm spring weather put a stop
, the flow else would probably have
Aade much more as found it a most
fascinating occupation. Next year +
A}De to extend my operations consid-
er3bly as I feel that I have learned
| the, essential points in successful sugar
I making.
maple sugar making has always
appealed to my imagination since the
days Of my childhood when my grand
mother used to entertain me with
tales of the sugar bush, as it used to
! be called, upon her fathers farm in
Pennsylvania; said appeal being
strengthened by the boxes of maple
sugar that came to our household
sometimes from the home of an uncle
fwho had a sugar grove upon his farm
lin southern Iowa. This year I read
Eyvith great interest John Burroughs
story of his boyhood written for
Harper's Magazine, in which he de-
Ecribes in detail the making of sirup
land sugar from his fathers grove of
two hundred and fifty trees back in
York State. He writes of it so -qu-
hintly and with such imagination that
1t makes most interesting reading, but
In a grove such as he describes the
task must have been heavy one. He
lays: "While tending the kettles
here beside the old arch in the bright,
warm March or April days, what
/ freams I used to have, what vague
pngings, what happy anticipations;
I'm sure I gathered more than sap and
ugar in, these youthful days amid the
naples" So [ may say also that my
Experience of last spring meant more
, me than just making some dainty
title cakes of maple sugar for it
atisfed desire that [ had never ex-
ected to crafty. r
"To approach my subject from the !
tactical side [ will say that the flow
sap starts in the first days of early
.5ring, the time varying probably .
, 18th the season but whenever the
! ays are bright and warm and the
.ghts frosty and cold. A cold snowy
}ell puts an end to the flow for the
! me being. Trees of less than eight |
iches in diameter are not consideredi
birth tapping and it is considered
lat a tree will produce some three
lunds cf sugar for each cord of it's
bod. The flow generally lasts about;
k weeks. My sugar was made from
lit maple trees and it is said that
lod quality of sirup can be made
bm the box-elder but should not be
|xed with the maple sap as it will
I crystalline but gets thick like
tghum or glucose. The incisio1
build be made with a half inch bit
Rough the bark Of the tree prefer
Iy about eighteen inches to two feet
bve the ground so that the bucket
lpan can sit on the ground. In case
! Ire is stock roaming in the groves
/ buckets should be hung higher on
ii Continued on last page) J.