The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1925-03-26
GARRETT COUNTY HAS AN
INDUSTRY ALL IT'S own
Wide Distribution of the Camp
Products Made to Many Sec
tiOns of The Country.

county. Inc llluSITdIlOIlS pictured a
number of scenes in the sugar camp
of Mr.. Peter H. Yost and also a pho
tograph of Forest Warden Abraham
Lincoln Sines. The article was writ
ten by Lawrence H. Bake, and was as
follows:
To most Baltimoreans-and to
many who are not Baltimoreans-th
flavor of maple sugar suggests a reg
ion that lies far to the North Maple
syrup and cakes are accepted as char
acteristic of New England just as
corn syrup and cakes are character
istic of the South.
Therefore, just as the flavor of the
corn brings to mind picturess of wide,
rolling fields, with acres and acres of
green tassel basking in the glowing
sunlight, so sweet fragrance of
maple syrup and sugar makes one
think of forest twilight and unyield-
ing cold into which spring, in all
literalness, must melt its way
On winter mornings, when the
maple syrup trickles over the hot
buckwheat cakes or the crisp, brown
waffles, one is apt to see a mental
picture of sturdy New Highlander,
muffled up to his ears and, perhaps,
shod with snow shoes, trudging over
SHOWS that crunch under his tread.
Over his shoulder will be a long pole
with a bucket dangling from each
end
Hanging on trees about him will be
more buckets, whose contents one will
see him empty into the vessles he
carries in order that he may trans
port them to caldron seething
somewhere over an immense open
fire. And all this, one is quite certain,
takes place in the North, most likely
in Vermont.
True enough, Vermont has gained a
great lead in the production of maple
syrup and sugar, and the tree from
which she derives them is a native of
northern ATTITUDES. But scientists who
study the living things of the world
have discovered that it is not always
necessary to change latitude to get a
change of plants and animals. One
may change altitude with the same
results.
If one goes into the western part of
Maryland, therefore, in Garrett coun-
ty, where mountain farms, some of
them at elevations of 5000 feet over
look Maryland, Pennsylvania and
West Virginia, one will find sugar
maple trees by the thousands and an
old-established maple-sugar industry
about which little or nothing is
known in the eastern part of the
State.
The maple-sugar region of Mary
land lies southwest of the State high
way, and the State highway here lies
remarkably close to Pennsylvania and
West Virginia. Perhaps that is why
so little of Maryland maple syrup and
sugar finds its way to Baltimore. At
all events, Baltimoreans visiting
parts north have been told in glowing
terms of the Maryland maple-sugar
industry, but have found it's products
unobtainable in their native city.
The facility of the mail-order bust
ness is another key to the mystery
one a trifle more applicable when one
learns from some of the Garrett
county Marylanders that their maple
sugar mailing lists include States as
far west as Kansas.
But the actual picture of a Mary
land maple-sugar grove is as worthy
of presentation as the one imagined
to be set in New England The two
pictures coincide on one point. Cold
is essential; and so far as pictures
involve time, this one will portray
that time of the year when the tenn
peratures of the night are still low,
even freezing, whereas the monday
sunshine makes the icicles trinkle and
the snowdrifts shrink. 1t is usually
the last two weeks in February and
the first two in March. 1t may, how
ever, be even the latter part of Janu-
airy.
The human part of the picture is
supplied by P. H. Yost, owner of
maple-sugar grove or Orchard" sixty
acres in extent, three miles from
Granstville, and by Abraham Lincoln
Sines, district forest warden, who
knows almost every tree-certainly
every farmer-in Garrett and Allie
gany counties. Both are weather.
Drowned men, clear-eyed and pos
sessed of an ability to Shiny over
snake fences with an agility that
makes it hard to believe they are
both past go.
The carpet of snow is lacking.
Treacherous drifts of it are lodged
her and there on the mountainside or
in compact little valleys, but the
maple orchard, for the most part, is
free and open. Giant gray trees,
some of them fiftV feet tall and three