MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY, a trade term, in common use, pertaining to the manu facture of sugar and syrup from the sap of rock or sugar maple, Acer saccharinum. This production is classed under "Agriculture" by the United States Census Bureau, and note was made of its importance at a very early day in the history of the government. The product is strictly confined to North America and the greater part to more or less limited areas in each of the geographical divisions known as New England, Middle Atlantic and Central Western States, and Canada bordering on the North. Twenty-three States reported maple sugar or syrup in 1900. Of the 11,928,770 pounds of sugar made that year in the United States, 87.8 per cent, or 10,478,240, were pro duced in the North Atlantic States. The three States of Vermont, New York and Penn sylvania reported over 80 per cent of the total. On the other hand, the States of the North Central division were credited, in 1900, with 1,211,334 gallons of syrup, out of a total of 2,056,611 for the entire country. Since 1900 the production has steadily declined, and what is marketed is subject to so much adulteration with ordinary sugar that the real output is un obtainable. It is, however, a decadent industry, as the trees have largely been exterminated.
In Canada the manufacture of maple sugar and syrup assumed a relatively high importance compared with the production in the United States. The Dominion census of 1901 gives the entire volume as 17,762,636 pounds (syrup being reduced to equivalent pounds of sugar for the purposes of this enumeration) ; and, of this aggregate, the province of Quebec is cred ited with 13,643,672 pounds of maple sugar, the province of Ontario following with a pro duction of 3,791,598 pounds. Maple sugar is reported from other provinces and territories as follows: New Brunswick, 207,450 pounds; Nova Scotia, 112,496 pounds; others light.
History.— Maple sugar and syrup was made at an early day by the pioneers of New England and Canada. It may have been a
product of "necessity, the mother of invention,' or an inheritance from the Indians, who had a spring-date of sugar-making moon; but, in either event, the first methods employed were crude, and the article was dark in color and not attractive. Moreover, tapping trees with an axe tended to denude the forest of its maples, and the whole modus operandi was wasteful in the extreme. The sap was caught in troughs, hewed out of logs, thence carried in pails to the boiling place and reduced to syrup in potash kettles. These kettles of the 18th century, or earlier, would be a curiosity at this day. They were suspended by chains from a horizontal pole, supported by forked or crossed sticks at each end, and surrounded by a blazing open fire. The camp-kettle, captured from General Burgoyne at the battle of Saratoga, 17 Oct. 1777, preserved in the Bennington Battle Monu ment, is a fine illustration of what these kettles resembled. Primitive ways, however, did not long continue. Improved methods, both as to tapping the maples,— leading up to the use of metal spouts, — and refining sap, followed one another, until now modern scientific prin ciples prevail; and it is possible to reduce the sap to sugar or syrup, using evaporators, al most immediately, so that its color is nearly white, flavored only with the delightful aroma of the maple.
Production and The sup ply in the United States, being much below the demand, has led to the "manufacture' of an article of commerce in which the pure maple product plays a very inconsequential part. Good authorities assert that sugar refineries makemuch more sugar and syrup, labeling it "maple,* than the entire natural production; that the refuse sugar of the real maple enters into the artificial combination of glucose, cane or beet sugar, and chemicals — to a very large degree creating a ready market for black American and Canadian sugars and the elate runs" of the maple sugar producing sections of both countries.