The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-04-09
GATHERING GARRETT CO.'S
EARLY CROP, MAPLE SUGAR
Warm Spring Days Will Soon
Bring To An End the Harvest
Of a Most Delicious Product
By P. Stewart Macauley, in The Bal
timore Sunday Sun.


ern States and Canada the first crop
of the year is being harvested. Else
where farmers are in the middle of
their spring planting and are looking
forward to the late summer or fall
when most of their crops will mature.
But in the maple sugar belt the har-
vest season already has passed its
height and in some sections is practi-
cally over. Up in Garrett county the
sap began to run this year during the
latter part of February and is proba-
bly, about over now. Farther north
where the climate is colder, in maple
groves of Vermont, Upper New York
State and Canada, the sap still is
dripping and entire neighborhoods
have taken to the woods until balmy
days bring out the buds and put an
end to the flow.
The production of maple syrup and
maple sugar is confined exclusively
to the North American continent. No
one knows definitely just when the in
dustry got it's start. There is consid-
cradle evidence that the first white
settlers of the st. Lawrence Valley
learned the secret of the sugar maple
from the Indians, who had developed
crude methods of evaporating the
sap of the tree into a kind of syrup
and who may even have known how
to make sugar Probably they boiled
the sap in wooden vessels by dropping
red-hot stones into it and perhaps
they had learned to freeze it and
throw away the sap ice which has a
very low sugar content. In any event
the first French settlers along the
st. Lawrence were using maple syrup
as early as 1856, when one La Houtan
described it's use in New France.
Strangely enough the first mention of
maple syrup in New England is dated
about 1920, hundred years after the
landing of the Pilgrims. If the In
dams inhabiting that region knew the
value of the sugar maple they must
have guarded their secret very care
fully indeed.
In the Colonial period and even for
some years afterward maple sugar
and syrup, aside from honey, were
the only sweetening available for the
American table. They were not lux
uries as they have since become, but
actual necessities, and the business
Of collecting and evaporating the sap
was a large and profitable one. Even
after the introduction of cane sugar
the maple industry did not relinquish
its hold entirely as a household ne
cessity, but as the former became
cheaper and more plentiful its use be-
came almost universal. A few efforts
were made to develop a highly refined
maple sugar on the order of the white
sugar of today, but no great success
attended the experiments and they
were abandoned.
But the mere fact that they nolong-
er were necessities had very little eff
feet on the market for maple products.
The elusive, woodsy flavor which has
no counterpart in any of the crea-
lions of man or nature has kept the
industry very much alive. And there
is no danger that it will die so long
as the fiapjack and the waffle remain.
The fragrant, mellow extract of the
maple tree today is as much part
of the typically American bill of fare
as is the fried chicken or the baked
bean. Indeed, it has been sanctioned
by a higher authority than either Of
these, for did not recent candidate
for the Presidency of the United
States ride into office with an over
whelming majority after campaign
in which Vermont sap bucket played
a prominent and appropriately silent
part?
But outside the field of politics the
sugar maple plays no small part in
contemporary affairs. The production
figures for the United States and Can
ada reveal the fact that the manu-
facture of syrup and sugar, if it is
not a major industry, is at least an
important minor one. Figures cited
for 1920 by the Department of Agri-
culture reveal that this country pro-
duced more than 100000 gallons of
syrup and nearly 100000 pounds
of sugar. Canada equals our output
in sugar, but manufactures only about
100000 gallons of syrup annually.
New York leads all the other States
in syrup production with more than
a million gallons and Ohio and YER
mont follow with approximately 700,-
900 and 100000 gallons, respectively.
But the Green Mountain State vim
dicates the reputation established for
it by it's eminent native son by leav-
ing the others far behind in the pro-
duction of sugar. Her output in 1920
was 6,250,000 pounds, New York run