Sugar plum

“ But about fifty years ago, this maple sugar industry was more carefully looked after, and nowadays the well-to-do farmer has a sugar house, and a fine grove of [47] maple trees, and glittering tin sap buckets hang on all the trees; and instead of a large iron kettle for boiling the sap, evaporators have been installed, where the sap runs in thin and clear and comes out a beautiful light brown sirup.
Imagine the joy of little Oisette when she was allowed to go to a sugaring off with her little English neighbors. ”

“ I learned more in the grove as the patient old horse drew the sled through a foot or two of old snow, and we gathered the crystal-clear sap from the buckets and poured it into the barrel, plodding from tree to tree. More still I got in the sugar house while the veteran fed the roaring fire and skimmed the scum from the boiling liquid as it flowed, an inch deep or so, along the winding channels, back and forth, sap at one end, syrup at the other.
The white men learned from the Indians the art of making maple sugar. ”

“ Take your Plums when they are full growne, with the stalks on them, but yet green, split them on the one side, and put them in hot water, but not too hot, and so let them stand three or four hours, then to a spoonfull of them, take three quarters of a pound of sugar, beaten very fine, and eight spoonfulls of water to every pound, and set them on hot embers till the sugar be melted, and after that boyle them till they be very tender, letting them stand in that Syrupe three dayes to plump them ”

“ Powers' answer.
"I suppose sugar-beets are just like those in our gardens," ventured Van.
"No, they're not; they are, however, not unlike them. They differ in having more juice and in usually being white," replied Mr. Powers. "The ground has first to be plowed and harrowed, and is afterward laid off in eighteen-inch rows because beets, you know, are planted from seed. When the crop comes up trouble begins, for it has to be thinned until each plant has a good area in which to grow; the beets must also be carefully weeded and the soil round them loosened if they are to thrive." ”

“ The sugar-maple is also very valuable: an auger-hole being bored in its trunk in the spring of the year, a small spout is inserted, and the liquor, which is subsequently evaporated to a consistency, is caught in a vessel. A single tree has been known to yield one hundred and fifty pounds of sugar; the average daily produce being from three to four or six pounds. ”

“ In the sugar-maple it is the sap that goes up in the early spring that has the sugar in it. The sugar-gatherers tap the trees before the leaves are put forth. The leaves, then, have nothing to do with making the sugar. How it is made we can not understand. We suppose that it is done in the root, where the mouths are that drink up the sap from the earth. But though we do not know how it is, in some way every sugar-maple as soon as it begins to be warmed by the air of spring becomes at once a sugar-factory. ”

“ But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown, the sugar pine is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict follower of coniferous fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical, every branch in place. At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy, fashionable form begins to give way. Special branches are thrust out away from the general outlines of the trees and bent down with cones. Henceforth it becomes more and more original and independent in style, pushes boldly aloft into the winds and sunshine, growing ever more stately and beautiful, a joy and inspiration to every beholder. ”

“ The small flowers or spikelets are borne in pairs on the ultimate branches of a much branched feathery plume-like terminal grey inflorescence, 2 ft. or more long. Production of flowers is uncertain under cultivation and seed is formed very rarely. The plant is readily propagated by cuttings, a piece of the stem bearing buds at its nodes will root rapidly when placed in sufficiently moist ground. The sugar-cane is widely cultivated in the tropics and some sub-tropical countries, but is not known as a wild plant. ”

“ Young tulip-trees about fifteen inches in diameter were cut down and their boles sawed into lengths of three feet. These were split in two, and made into troughs by hollowing the faces and charring them over a fire. During the bright spring days of sugar-making the young Western mother would wrap her sturdy babe in its blanket and put it in a dry sugar-trough to sleep while she tended the boiling syrup. A man born sixty years ago in the region of tulip-trees and sugar-camps was probably cradled in a "poplar" trough ”

“ We get our word "candy," not from the Cingalese city of that name, but from the Arabian quand, meaning sugar. Now, sugar is the crystallized juice of one of the gigantic grasses; candy, therefore, is only boiled grass-juice. As the bee collects from its two and a half million plants the nectar for its pound of honey, so man—a kind of giant bee—extracts from various plants their delicious liquors, which he afterward turns by his art into that sweet and shining sand called sugar. ”

“ Sugar-making, then, unless the farmer is strong handed, is not profitable. A visit to a sugar-camp is an interesting sight to a stranger—it may, perhaps, be two or three miles through the woods to where a sufficient number of maple trees may be found close enough together to render it eligible for sugar-making. All the different kinds of maple yield a sweet sap, but the "rock maple" is the species particularly used for sugar, and perhaps a thousand of these trees near together constitute what is called a sugar-bush. ”

“ Sugaring-off is the final process of sugar-making, when the syrup into which the sap has been made by long boiling down, is clarified and skimmed and boiled still until it is clear as amber, ready, when cooled, to become a solid mass of glittering sweetness. It is astonishing what a quantity of the warm brown liquid can be consumed with pleasure, and without satiety, and on sugaring-off days not even the half-acknowledged dread of Mr Fleming and his stern looks and ways prevented a gathering of young people larger than would have been welcome to less open-handed folk. ”

“ In the northern states of America, sugar in large quantities is obtained from some species of maple, principally the sugar maple and swamp maple of Canada, by boring the stem, collecting the ascending sap which flows from the wound, and evaporating away its watery portions. ”

“ When fresh it is white, but because most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire the sap is stained and the hardened sugar becomes brown. Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties only small quantities may be eaten. No tree lover will ever forget his first meeting with the sugar pine. In most pine trees there is the sameness of expression which to most people is apt to become monotonous, for the typical spiral form of conifers, however beautiful, affords little scope for appreciable individual character. ”

“ As fast as it evaporates, fresh sap is poured in until the syrup becomes thick, and then follows granulation, or, as the farmers call it, 'sugaring off.' These periods of sugaring off, which occurred usually once or twice a week during the sugar season, were participated in by the neighbors from far and near, who would come to eat sugar and make merry. ”

“ The advent of the sugaring season is looked forward to with joy by the young people in those districts of New England where the sugar-maple grows freely. When the sap begins to flow they know that there will be fun galore, and they watch eagerly for the first mild days that will encourage the farmers to get out the sugar-buckets. ”

“ They are not infrequently infested by a small insect, the sugar-mite, many thousands of which have been detected in a single pound of brown sugar." Cane-sugar and grape-sugar, otherwise known as sucrose and glucose, are obtained from various sources. Most of the cane-sugar consumed in England is actually produced from the sugar-cane, but of beet-root sugar there is much in the market, and in America sugar is produced from the maple, from maize, and from the "sugar grass." ”

“ The milder days multiplied; the snow had less depth on the earth, and now came on the season of sugar making. In all our forest region magnificent sugar maples abounded like an orchard, and Fabens prepared for his spring encampment in the bush. His shanty was repaired with new bark on the roof, and a fresh carpet of clean wheat straw on the rough bark floor ”

“ As if to shew that “the earth full of the riches of the Lord,” in parts of the world where the low temperature is an obstacle to the profitable cultivation of the sugar-cane, a substitute is found for it in the acer saccharinum, or sugar-maple, which presents the great peculiarity of the ascending sap being charged with sugar to such a degree as to be then fit for the manufacture of this valuable substance. ”

“ The subject of domestic cultivation of sugar bearing plants is, therefore, one of great importance to this nation, and it has accordingly engaged the attention of the U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture, and many experiments have been made in different parts of the country in the propagation of the various canes, roots, etc., from which sugar can be made. Among sugar-bearing plants, beside the regular sugar cane, are, sorghum, sugar beet, maple, watermelon, sweet and white potato, and corn stalk. ”

“ I see by the newspapers that the season for making sugar is at hand. Now is the time, whether you be rock, or white maple, or hickory. I trust that you have prepared a store of sap-tubs and sumach spouts, and invested largely in kettles. Early the first frosty morning, tap your maples,—the sap will not run in summer, you know. It matters not how little juice you get, if you get all you can, and boil it down. I made just one crystal of sugar once, one twentieth of an inch cube, out of a pumpkin, and it sufficed. ”

“ The Indians, to whom the rising of the sap in its capillary vessels in the rock-maple is the sign of a sort of carnival, are now in the midst of their season of sugar-making. It is one of their old customs to move, men, women, children, and dogs, to their accustomed sugar-forests about the 20th of March. Besides the quantity of maple-sugar that all eat, which bears no small proportion to all that is made, some of them sell a quantity to the merchants. Their name for this species of tree is In-in-au-tig, which means man-tree. ”

“ In addition to the nuts of the sugar pine, the Indians collect the sugar of dried juice which exudes at points where cuts have been made in the tree for the purpose. Incidentally, the sugar pine is one of our finest American trees anyway. Botanists tell us that it grows to a height of two hundred and seventy-five feet, and travellers say that it reaches three hundred feet. The latter people having actually seen the trees we may know which estimate to accept. ”

“ The sap from them when boiled down furnishes us the most delicious syrup and sugar in the world. When we seek the sugar, however, it is from the variety known by that name. The manufacture of maple sugar is a leading industry during the spring months in many sections, especially in Vermont, and some parts of New York and other states. ”

“ We take the Sunday to visit the nearest sugar-plantation, belonging to Don Jacinto Gonzales. Sun, not shade, being the desideratum in sugar-planting, there are few trees or shrubs bordering the sugar-fields, which resemble at a distance our own fields of Indian corn, the green of the leaves being lighter, and a pale blue blossom appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery, the negroes, and the work. ”

“ In the summer vast fields are to be seen blue with the flower of the flax, and tier many is one of the great linen-making countries of the world. The sugar-beet is widely grown, and a large quantity of sugar is made. ”

“ Yes, [Footnote: All the maple tribe are of a saccharine nature. Sugar has been made in England from the sap of the sycamore.] my lady; but I believe the sugar-maple yields the best sap for the purpose; that of the birch-tree, I have heard, can be made into sugar; but it would require a larger quantity; weak wine, or vinegar, is made by the settlers of birch-sap, which is very pleasant tasted. The people who live in the backwoods, and make maple-sugar, always make a keg of vinegar at the sugaring off. ”

“ Obviously, if it is desirable to produce our own sugar, the tropical sugar-cane can not be regarded as the chief source of supply, and we must place our dependence upon some plant better adapted to our varied soils and limited rainfall.
The sugar-beet has much to commend it; it is successfully raised in France, Germany, and Austria, and furnishes, at the present time, thirty per cent of the sugar consumed by civilized nations. ”

“ In the north climatic conditions are not so good, and consequently all of the large sugar enterprises are to be found in the south. Ploughing by the natives is poorly done with wooden ploughs, but the modern plantations use steam ploughs with excellent results. Cane is planted every year and there are no ratoon crops. Grinding usually takes 150 days, beginning in November and ending in May.
The old-fashioned mills turn out a soft brown or yellowish white, open-pan sugar. ”

“ Sugar is divided into the following classes:—Refined sugar, white clayed, brown clayed, brown raw, and molasses. The sugarcane grows to the height of six, twelve, or even sometimes twenty feet. It is propagated from cuttings, requires much hoeing and weeding, giving employment to thousands upon thousands of slaves in the slave countries, and attains maturity in twelve or thirteen months. ”