The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1923-04-18
Put Your Maple
Trees to Work
GALES TOWNSHIP WOMAN HAS
FINE SUCCESS MAKING MIN
NESOTA MAPLE SUGAR.
written by Mrs. C. w. Belville,
at request of Gazette


1 copy the following story from one
OF the farm papers | take: "Three
years ago farmer near Portage,
wisconsin, decided to utilize the grove
OF sugar naples which had long re-
NAMED untouched on his farm. There
were about 500 trees in the grove.
The farmer and his son, with the oc-
casional help of the women of the
family, succeeded in manufacturing
and marketing the product of this
/ grove. The expense of the outfit was
under 500 as they used homemade
apparatus whenever possible. They
made sugar only and advertised in a
lew city papers, sending by parcel
/ post. That year maple sugar sold
for rs cents a pound in Chicago. Con-
sequently the farmers net profit for
nine weeks work was one thousand
! dollars"
! The time of sap running starts in
the first days of early spring, varying
with the season, but whenever the
days are bright and warm and the
nights frosty and cold. A cold snowy
! spell or few days of untimely
warmth put stop to the flow for the
time being. Trees of less than eight
1 inches in diameter are not considered
worth tapping and it is expected that
tree will produce some three pounds
OF sugar for each cord of its wood.
My sugar was made from what we
call the soft maple, it is also called
the black maple, which is the sugar
maple of the Dakotas, Minnesota and
Iowa. 1t does not vary greatly from
the sugar maple of the eastern states.
Naples of this variety abound in the
groves of this state. John Burroughs
says that the soft maple makes very
fine white sugar, superior in quality,
but far less in quantity, than the
sugar maple of the eastern states.
1t is said that good quality of syrup
can be made from the box elder,
varity of maple, but should not be
mixed with the maple sap as it lacks
the crystallizing quality and will not
go to sugar, but thickens up like sorg-
hum or glucose.
The incision should be made on the
sunny side of the tree with half inch
bit through the bark, preferably about
eighteen inches to two feet above the
ground so that the bucket or pan can
sit on the ground. In case there is
livestock running in the grove the
bucket should be hung higher on the
trunk. A spout or tube Of metal or
wood is inserted to carry the sap into
non-cOrroding material and the sap
/ should not stand long or it will sour.
A sap run seldom lasts more than a
few days, change of the weather
spOils it, then the first condition of
warm days and frosty, clear nights
again comes about and it starts again.
These periods of running often last
for six weeks, that is if weather con-
ditions are right in late February,
through March and into April; this
! year it is bound to be very short ow-
ing to our very late spring. Bur-
roughs says that the first run, like
first love, is always the best, always
the fullest, always the sweetest; while
there is purity and delicacy of flavor
about the sugar that far surpasses any
subsequent yield.
The sap when first gathered is. as
clear as well-water but after being
boiled for a few hours it begins to
1 take on pale-brown color and gets
thick and waxy We are told by those
who know that each days sap should
be cooked by itself. To clarity add
cup of sweet milk or the whites of
eggs to the sap when cold, at some
stage of the process. / strained my
liquid several times. Boiling it down
is a tedious process but not in any
way laborious. / boiled my sap in
u the wash boiler until it began to
thicken, then transferred to smaller
kettles and boiled it down just as in
candy-making until it crystallized
then poured into small moulds lightly
creased.
1t is estimated that it takes thirty
two gallons of sap to make gallon
of syrup and gallon of syrup will
make seven to eight pounds of sugar.
According to the Food and Drugs Act
if made for sale the syrup must weigi,
eleven pounds to the gallon which
can be determined by a thermometer.
A fair grade of syrup boiling at 219
degrees, Fahrenheit will weigh II
: pounds to the gallon. Syrup must be
4 sealed while hot or it will mould in
| the container.
] preferred to make all my sap into
, sugar and had close to twenty pounds
), when done, of a superfiine quality
:. so / must have had around ninety gal
: Ions of sap to start with. If one were
making the sugar in large quantities
the initial process should be carried
on out-of-doors, taking it into the
|, kitchen for the final sugaring-of.
boiled mine on the kitchen range, us
ing cobs and waste wood for fuel, and
, falsified the saying that one "cannot
-get something for nothing" for my
sugar did not cost anything but 8
little labor and a great deal of patti
ence. / think the sap gathering
I should be done by the male members
: of the household and the boiling and
sugaring-off by the women-folks
This seems to me an equitable divi-
J sion of labor and then all can say
"our" maple sugar.
Il To the uninformed, maple sugar
: making in Minnesota may not seen
s like much of an occupation, but I an
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