The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1934-03-16

get tired or boots, and want to come out and
touch the soil just as the sun has
warmed it little. The country boy goes bare
foot just naturally as the trees burst their
buds, which were packed and vanished over in
the fall to keep the water and the frost out.
Perhaps the boy has been out digging into the
maple trees with his jack knife; at any rate,
he is pretty sure to announce the discovery as
he comes running into the house in a great
state of excitement-as if he has heard a hen
cackle in the barn-with, 'Sap's runnin'p"
Yes, "sap's runnin' in the New England
states, in New York, Ohio Indiana Illinois, in
fact, wherever hard naples are native to the
soil. On hundreds of farms in those states blue
smoke, curling up into the air above the trees
in a sugar bush," tells the passerby that the
sugar camp" is in operation and that here is
being produced those two finest of all native
sweets, maple strip and maple sugar. And If
that passerby has ever known the joys of maple
sugar time, the sight of that smoke and the
smells which drift toward him from the sugar
camp will make memories tug at his heartstrings
and it will be difficult for him to pass on by.
For as Charles Dudley Warner says: an my
day, maple sugar making used to be something
between picnicking and being shpwrecked on a
fertile island where one should save from the
wreck tubs and augers, and great kettles and
pork and hens eggs and rye-and-Indian bread,
and begin at once to lead the sweetest life in
the world. 1 am told that 1t is something diff
ferent nowadays and that there is more desire
to save the sap, and make good, pure sugar,
and sell it for a large price, than there used
to be, and that the old fun and pcturesqueness
of the business pretty much gone am told
that it is the custom to carefully collect the
sap and bring it to the house. where there are
built brick arches, over which 1t is evaporated
in shallow pans and that pains are taken to keep
the leaves and sticks and ashes and Goals out
of it and that the sugar is clarified; and that
in short, 1t is a money making business in which
there is very little fun, and that the boy is not
allowed to dip his paddle into the kettle Of
boiling sugar and lick off the delicious strip.
The prohibition may improve the sugar, but it
LIS cruel to the boy"
Those words were written more than half a
century ago ("Being a Boy" was first printed
in 1877 and Houghton, Mifflin and Company of
Boston got out second edition 20 years later,
illustrated with photographs by Clifton john
son, lovingly taken from the real life and heart
of New England" which aid in preserving the
charm of those truly good old days'). If Charles
Dudley Warner were alive today he would find
that in some places where maple sugar is made
the "fun and picturesqueness" are gone even
more than they were when he wrote. For in
stance in the state with which, more than any
other, we associate thoughts Of maple sugar,
there's a man, known the champion sugar
maker of Vermont" who has devised an intricate
system Of iron pipes leading from every one Of
the trees in his maple grove to huge eyaporators
In the sugar house, and this network of pipes,
more than $4,000 feet in length, sends a steady
stream Of sap into the place where 1t is
verted into maple strip and maple sugar.
But despite this example of modern efficiency
applied to a business rich in tradition there still
are sugar camps in many places where the sap
drips through "spiles" made of sumach or alder
into wooden sap buckets Gust like the ones
made famous by President Coolidge during his
administrator where 1t is collected into great
wooden tubs or barrels seds, drawn by
yoke of oxen a team of plodding horses;
where 1t is boiled down in great iron or copper
kettles where they still hang a piece of fat
salt pork by a string from the pole over the ket-
tie so that it is about two inches from the top
edge to keep the sap from boiling over; and
where they will let you dip some of the bubbling
strip out of the kettle and pour it on the snow
where it forms almost Immediately that delicacy
of all delicacies-maple sugar wax No, not all
of the fun and picturesqueness has been taken
out of maple sugar time by modern methods and
.new-fangled notions" of efficiency in production
Like so many other items in national diet
we owe the addition of maple strip and maple
sugar TO the Indians. There is an interesting
legend about the way the red man discovered
maple sugar. According to the story, certain
Woksis mighty hunter, was out one day in
search of game and his diligent squaw, whose
name was Moqua, was busy embroidering pair
of moccasins to surprise him when he came
back home But she knew. as all wives know,
that in addition to a surprise she had to have
an evening meal awaiting her lord
So she hastily cut off piece of moose meat
and set 1t to boil in the water which ran from
the maple tree at the door of her tepee-since
the tree was nearer than the spring. Then she
bent so interestedly over her embroidery that