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The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom by P. L. Simmonds

P >> P. L. Simmonds >> The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom




Large tracts of land in the Ottawa district are covered with the true
sugar maple. It is found in great numbers in the eastern townships of
Lower Canada, where considerable forests of miles in extent contain
nothing else, and in other places it is mixed with various trees.
There is scarcely a spot in Lower Canada where it is not to be met
with. Capt. Marryatt has stated that there were trees enough on the
shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, to supply the whole world with
sugar. In the United States, the manufacture of the sugar was first
attempted about the year 1752, by some farmers of New England, as a
branch of rural economy. This gradually spread wherever the tree was
known. Now it forms an article of food throughout a large portion of
the country. Almost every farmer prepares sugar enough from the trees
in his neighbourhood for the consumption of his family during the
year, and has often a surplus for sale. It is much cheaper than
muscovado, being sold at from 2d. to 31/2d. per pound, whilst common
muscovado cannot be bought for less than 41/2d. to 5d. per pound.

The province of Canada produced nearly ten million pounds in 1852,
6,190,694 being made in Lower Canada, and 3,581,505 in Upper Canada.
The quantity made in Lower Canada in 1849 was only about 1,537,093
lbs. The maple sugar product of the Canadas in 1848 was officially
stated as follows:--

lbs.
Upper Canada 4,160,667
Lower Canada 2,303,158
---------
6,463,835

This product is therefore of immense importance to the British North
American provinces, all of which, under a judicious system, might be
made to produce vastly increased quantities of this wholesome and
valuable commodity.

The importation of sugar in Canada may very safely be computed at
L40,000 per annum, and the whole of this amount of money could be
retained in the country if the people would only look well to the
matter.

In tapping the tree, the gouge is the best implement that can be used,
provided it is an object to save the timber. It is usual, when using
the gouge, to take out a chip about an inch and a half in diameter;
but this system is objectionable where the maple is not abundant, as
it subjects the timber to decay; it is a better course to make an
incision by holding the gouge obliquely upwards an inch or more in the
wood. A spout, or spile, as it is termed, about a foot long, to
conduct off the sap, is inserted about two inches below this incision
with the same gouge. By this mode of tapping, the wound in the tree is
so small that it will be perfectly healed or grown over in two years.
A boiler, of thick sheet-iron, made to rest on the top of an arch, by
which the sides would be free from heat, and only the bottom is
exposed, is doubtless a secure and rapid process of evaporation. The
sides and ends of the boiler may be made of well-seasoned boards,
which will answer the same purpose as if made solely of sheet-iron.
When the sap is boiled down into syrup or thin molasses, it must be
taken out of the boiler and strained through a flannel cloth into a
tub, where it should settle about twenty-four hours. The clear syrup
should be separated from the sediment, which will be found in the
bottom of the tub. The pure syrup must be boiled down into sugar over
a slow fire. A short time, however, before the syrup is brought to a
boiling heat, to complete the clarifying process, the whites of five
eggs well beaten, about one quart of new milk, and a spoonful of
saleratus, should be all well mixed with a sufficient amount of syrup,
to make 100 lbs. of sugar. The scum which would rise on the top must
be skimmed off. Caution is to be observed in not allowing the syrup to
boil until the skimming process is completed. To secure a good
article, the greatest attention must be bestowed in granulating the
syrup. The boxes or tubs for draining should be large at the top and
small at the bottom. The bottom of the tubs should be bored full of
small holes, to let the molasses drain through. After it has nearly
done draining, the sugar may be dissolved, and the process of
clarifying, granulating, and draining repeated, which will give as
pure a quality of sugar as the best refined West India article.

The greatest objections that are advanced against maple sugar are,
that the processes made use of in preparing the sugar for market are
so rude and imperfect that it is too generally acid, and besides
charged with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily
strikes a black color with tea. These objections may be removed
without any comparative difficulty, as it has been proved to
demonstration, by the application of one ounce of clear lime-water to
a gallon of maple sap, that the acidity will be completely
neutralised, and the danger of the syrup adhering to the sides of the
boiler totally removed. The acid so peculiar to the maple sugar, when
combined with lime in the above proportion, is found to be excessively
soluble in alcohol; so much so, that yellow sugar can be rendered
white in a few minutes by placing it in an inverted cone, open at the
top, with small holes at the bottom, and by pouring on the base of the
cone a quantity of alcohol. This should filtrate through until the
sugar is white; it should then be dried and re-dissolved in boiling
water, and again evaporated until it becomes dense enough to
crystallise. Then pour it into the cones again, and let it harden. By
this process a very white sample of sugar may be made, and both the
alcohol and acids will be thoroughly dispelled with the vapor.

The process of making maple sugar it will be seen is very simple and
easily performed. The trees must be of suitable size, and within a
convenient distance of the place where the operations of boiling, &c.,
are to be performed. When gathered, the sap should be boiled as early
as possible, as the quality of the sugar is in a great degree
dependent on the newness or freshness of the sap. There is a tendency
to acidity in this fluid which produces a quick effect in preventing
the making of sugar; and which, when the sap is obliged to be kept for
many hours in the reservoirs, must be counteracted by throwing into
them a few quarts of slaked lime. During the time of sugar making,
warm weather, in which the trees will not discharge their sap,
sometimes occurs, and the buckets become white and slimy, from the
souring of the little sap they contain. In this case they should be
brought to the boiler and washed out carefully with hot water, and a
handful of lime to each.

In reducing the sap, the great danger to be apprehended is from
burning the liquid after it is made to the consistence of molasses,
since, when this is done, it is impossible to convert it into sugar; a
tough, black, sticky mass, of little value, being the result. Indeed,
constant care and attention is required to produce a first-rate
article: for though sugar may be made in almost any way where the sap
can be procured, yet unless the strictest care is observed in the
processes, in gathering and boiling the sap, clarifying the syrup, and
in converting the syrup to sugar, a dirty inferior article will be
made, instead of the beautiful and delicious sweet which the maple,
properly treated, is sure to yield.

The quantity of sugar produced in a year varies considerably from the
same trees. The cause of this difference is to be found in the depth
of snow, continued cold, or a sudden transition from cold to warm,
thus abridging the period of sugar-making. A sharp frost at night,
with clear warm days, is the most favorable to the sugar-maker.
Perhaps four pounds of sugar from a tree may be a pretty fair average
of seasons generally, although we have known the growth to exceed six
pounds, and sink as low as three. A man will take care of one hundred
trees easily, during the season of sugar, which usually lasts from
about the middle of March into April, perhaps employing him twenty
days in the whole. Dr. Jackson, in his Report of the Maine Geological
Survey, gives the following instances of the production of sugar in
that State:--

Lbs. of Sugar.
At the Forks of the Kennebec, twelve persons made 3,605
On No. 1, 2d range, one man and a boy made 1,000
In Farmington, Mr. Titcomb made 1,500
In Moscow, thirty families made 10,500
In Bingham, twenty-five families made 9,000
In Concord, thirty families made 11,000

A cold and dry winter is followed with a greater yield of sugar from
the maple than a season very moist and variable. Trees growing in wet
places will yield more sap, but much less sugar from the same
quantity, than trees on more elevated and drier ground. The red and
white maple will yield sap, but it has much less of the saccharine
quality than the rock or sugar maple.

The work begins usually about the first of March. The tree will yield
its sap long before vegetation appears from the bud: frequently the
most copious flow is before the snow disappears from the ground.

Some persons have a camp in their maple orchards, where large
cauldrons are set in which to boil down the sap to the consistency of
a thick syrup: others take the liquid to their houses, and there boil
down and make the sugar.

The process begins by the preparation of spouts and troughs or tubs
for the trees: the spouts or tubes are made of elder, sumach, or pine,
sharpened to fit an auger hole of about three-fourths of an inch in
diameter. The hole is bored a little upward, at the distance
horizontally of five or six inches apart, and about twenty inches from
the ground on the south or sunny side of the tree. The trough, cut
from white maple, pine, ash, or bass wood, is set directly under the
spouts, the points of which are so constructed as completely to fill
the hole in the tree, and prevent the loss of the sap at the edges,
having a small gimlet or pitch hole in the centre, through which the
entire juice discharged from the tree runs, and is all saved in the
vessels below. The distance bored into the tree is only about one-half
an inch to give the best run of sap. The method of boring is far
better for the preservation of the tree than boxing, or cutting a hole
with an axe, from the lower edge of which the juice is directed by a
spout to the trough or tub prepared to receive it. The tub should be
of ash or other wood that will communicate no vicious taste to the
liquid or sugar.

The sap is gathered daily from the trees and put in larger tubs for
the purpose of boiling down. This is done by the process of a steady
hot fire. The surface of the boiling kettle is from time to time
cleansed by a skimmer. The liquid is prevented from boiling over by
the suspension of a small piece of fat pork at the proper point. Fresh
additions of sap are made as the volume boils away. When boiled down
to a syrup, the liquor is set away in some earthen or metal vessel
till it becomes cool and settled. Again the purest part is drawn off
or poured into a kettle until the vessel is two-thirds full. By a
brisk and continual fire, the syrup is further reduced in volume to a
degree of consistence best taught by a little experience, when it is
either put into moulds to become hard as it is cooled, or stirred
until it shall be grained into sugar. The right point of time to take
it away from the fire may be ascertained by cooling and graining a
small quantity. The sediment is strained off and boiled down to make
molasses.

The following is from a Massachusetts paper:--

The maple produces the best sugar that we have from any plant.
Almost every one admires its taste. It usually sells in this market
(Boston) nearly twice as high as other brown sugar. Had care been
taken from the first settlement of the country to preserve the sugar
maple, and proper attention been given to the cultivation of this
tree, so valuable for fuel, timber, and ornament, besides the
abundant yield of saccharine juice, we could now produce in New
England sugar enough for our own consumption, and not be dependent
on the labour of those who toil and suffer in a tropical sun for
this luxury or necessary of life. But, for want of this friendly
admonition,

"Axeman, spare that tree,"

the sturdy blows were dealt around without mercy or discretion; and
the very generation that committed devastation in the first
settlements in different sections of our country, generally lived to
witness a scarcity of fuel; and means were resorted to for the
purchase of sugar, that were far more expensive than would have been
its manufacture, under a proper mode of economy in the preservation
of the maple, and the production of sugar from its sap.

Those who have trees of the sugar maple, should prepare in season
for making sugar. In many localities, wood is no object, and a rude
method of boiling is followed; but where fuel is very scarce, a
cheap apparatus should be prepared that will require but little
fuel. In some sections, broad pans or kettles have been made of
sheet-iron bottoms, and sides of plank or boards, care being taken
(continued) to allow the fire to come into contact with the iron
only. These pans cost but a trifle, and, owing to their large
surface, the evaporation is rapid.

Another cheap construction for boiling with economy is, to make a
tight box of plank, some four or five feet square--the width of a
wide plank will answer, and then put into it, almost at the bottom,
a piece of large copper funnel, say ten or twelve inches at the
outer part, and then smaller. This funnel, beginning near one end,
should run back nearly to the opposite side, then turn and come put
at the opposite end, or at the side near the end, as most
convenient, being in only two straight parts, that the soot may be
cleared out. Each end should be made tight, with a flange nailed to
the box. At the mouth of the large part there should be a door, to
reduce the draught; here make the fire, and at the other end have a
funnel to carry off the smoke. In this case, there is only sheet
copper between the fire and the sap which surrounds the funnel, so
that the heat is readily taken up by the liquid, and very little
escapes. This is an economical plan for cooking food for stock,
steaming timber, &c.

For catching the sap, various kinds of vessels are used. The
cheapest are made of white birch, which last one season, or less.
Troughs of pine, or linden or bass wood, may be made for a few cents
each, and they will last for a number of years, if inverted in the
shade of trees. But these are inconvenient; and, after the first
year, they become dirty, and clog the sap. Pails with iron hoops are
the best, and, eventually, the cheapest. By painting and carefully
preserving them, they will cost, for a course of years, about one
cent each for a year.

Mr. Alfred Fitch, in the "Genesee Farmer," says:--

In clarifying, I use for 50 lbs. of sugar one pint of skimmed milk,
put into the syrup when cold, and place it over a moderate fire
until it rises, which should occupy thirty or forty minutes; then
skim and boil until it will grain; after which I put it into a tub,
and turn on a little cold water, and in a few days the molasses will
drain out, and leave the sugar dry, light, and white.

Mr. E.W. Clark, of Oswego, furnishes the following:--

_On Fining Maple Sugar_.--The sweet obtained from the maple tree is
undoubtedly the purest known; but from mismanagement in the
manufacture it frequently becomes very impure. Its value is
lessened, while the expense of making it increases. I am sensible
that the method which I shall recommend is not altogether a new one,
and that it is more by attending to some apparently minute and
trivial circumstances, than to any new plan, that my sugar is so
good. Much has been written upon, and many useful improvements been
made in, that part of the process which relates to tapping the
trees, and gathering and evaporating the sap, &c.; but still, if the
final operation is not understood, there will be a deficiency in the
quality of the sugar. I shall confine myself to that part of the
operation which relates to reducing the syrup to sugar, as it is of
the first importance. My process is this:--When the syrup is reduced
to the consistence of West India molasses, I set it away till it is
perfectly cold, and then mix with it the clarifying matter, which is
milk or eggs. I prefer eggs to milk, because when heated the whole
of it curdles; whereas milk produces only a small portion of curd.
The eggs should be thoroughly beaten and effectually mixed with the
syrup while cold. The syrup should then be heated till just before
it would boil, when the curd rises, bringing with it every impurity,
even the coloring matter, or a great portion of that which it had
received from the smoke, kettles, buckets, or reservoirs. The
boiling should be checked, and the scum carefully removed, when the
syrup should be slowly turned into a thick woollen strainer, and
left to run through at leisure. I would remark, that a great
proportion of the sugar that is made in our country is not strained
after cleansing. This is an error. If examined in a wine-glass,
innumerable minute and almost imperceptible particles of curd will
be seen floating in it, which, if not removed, render it liable to
burn, and otherwise injure the taste and color of it.

A flannel strainer does this much better than a linen one. It is,
indeed, _indispensable_. As to the quantity of eggs necessary, one
pint to a pailful of syrup is amply sufficient, and half as much
will do very well. I now put my syrup into another kettle, which has
been made perfectly clean and _bright_, when it is placed over a
quick but solid fire, and soon rises, but is kept from overflowing
by being ladled with a long dipper. When it is sufficiently reduced,
(I ascertain this by dropping it from the point of a knife, while
hot, into one inch of cold water--if done, it will not immediately
mix with the water, but lies at the bottom in a round flat drop,) it
is taken from the fire, and the foaming allowed to subside. A thick
white scum, which is useable, is removed, and the sugar turned into
a cask, placed on an inclined platform, and left undisturbed for six
weeks or longer, when it should be tapped in the bottom and the
molasses drawn off. It will drain perfectly dry in a few days.

The sugar made in this manner is very nearly as white as lump sugar,
and beautifully grained. We have always sold ours at the highest
price of Muscovadoes; and even when these sugars have sold at
eighteen cents, ours found a ready market at twenty. Two hands will
sugar off 250 lbs. in a day. From the scum taken off in cleansing, I
usually make, by diluting and recleansing, one-sixth as much as I
had at first, and of an equal quality.

It is not of much consequence as regards the quality of the sugar,
whether care be taken to keep the sap clean or not. The points in
which the greatest error is committed, are, neglecting to use a
flannel strainer, or to strain after cleansing--to have the sugar
kettle properly cleaned--and to remove the white scum from the
sugar.

An important process of manufacturing maple sugar, which produces a
most beautiful article, is also thus described in a communication by
the gentleman who gained the first premium at the State Fair at
Rochester in 1843, to the Committee on Maple Sugar of the New York
State Agricultural Society.

In the first place, I make my buckets, tubs, and kettles all
perfectly clean. I boil the sap in a potash kettle, set in an arch
in such a manner that the edge of the kettle is defended all around
from the fire. I boil through the day, taking care not to have
anything in the kettle that will give color to the sap, and to keep
it well skimmed. At night I leave fire enough under the kettle to
boil the sap nearly or quite to syrup by the next morning. I then
take it out of the kettle, and strain it through a flannel cloth
into a tub, if it is sweet enough; if not, I put it in a cauldron
kettle, which I have hung on a pole in such a manner that I can
swing it on or off the fire at pleasure, and boil it till it is
sweet enough, and then strain it into the tub, and let it stand till
the next morning. I then take it and the syrup in the kettle, and
put it altogether into the cauldron, and sugar it off. I use, to
clarify say 100 lbs. of sugar, the whites of five or six eggs well
beaten, about one quart of new milk, and a spoonful of saleratus,
all we'll mixed with the syrup before it is scalding hot. I then
make a moderate fire directly under the cauldron, until the scum is
all raised; then skim it off clean, taking care not to let it boil
so as to rise in the kettle before I have done skimming it. I then
sugar it off, leaving it so damp that it will drain a little. I let
it remain in the kettle until it is well granulated. I then put it
into boxes made smallest at the bottom, that will hold from fifty to
seventy lbs., having a thin piece of board fitted in, two or three
inches above the bottom, which is bored full of small holes, to let
the molasses drain through, which I keep drawn off by a tap through
the bottom. I put on the top of the sugar, in the box, a clean damp
cloth; and over that, a board, well fitted in, so as to exclude the
air from the sugar. After it has done draining, or nearly so, I
dissolve it, and sugar it off again; going through with the same
process in clarifying and draining as before.

The following remarks from Dr. Jackson, of Boston, may be of interest
to the sections of the country where maple sugar is made:--

The northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York,
have dense forests of the sugar maple, and at present only very rude
processes are made use of in preparing the sugar for market, so that
it is too generally acid and deliquescent, besides being charged
with salts of the oxide of iron, insomuch that it ordinarily strikes
a black color with tea. To remedy these difficulties was the object
of my researches; while, at the same time, I was engaged in
ascertaining the true composition of the sap, with a view to the
theory of vegetable nutrition.

I received several gallons of freshly-drawn maple sap from
Northampton, Warner, and Canterbury, and made analyses of each lot,
separating the acids, salts, and the sugar. I also analysed the sap
of the yellow and white birch, which do not give any crystallisable
sugar, but an astringent molasses.

I shall now communicate to you the process by which I manufactured
sugar maple sap, received from the Shakers of Canterbury, who
collected it with care in a clear glass demijohn, and sent it
forthwith, so that it came to me without any change of composition,
the weather being cold at the time. The evaporation was carried on
in glass vessels until the sap was reduced to about one-eighth its
original bulk, and then it was treated with a sufficient quantity of
clear lime-water to render it neutral, and the evaporation was
completed in a shallow porcelain basin. The result was, that a
beautiful yellow granular sugar was obtained, from which not a
single drop of molasses drained, and it did not deliquesce by
exposure to the air. Another lot of the sap, reduced to sugar
without lime-water, granulated, but not so well, was sour to the
taste, deliquesced by exposure, and gave a considerable quantity of
molasses.

Having studied the nature of the peculiar acid of the maple, I found
that its combinations with lime were excessively soluble in alcohol,
so that the yellow sugar first described could be rendered white in
a few minutes, by placing it in an inverted cone open at the bottom,
and pouring a fresh quantity of alcohol upon it, and allowing it to
filtrate through the sugar. The whitened sugar was then taken and
re-dissolved in boiling water and crystallised, by which all the
alcoholic flavour was entirely removed, and a perfectly fine
crystallised and pure sugar resulted. Now, in the large way, I
advise the following method of manufacturing maple sugar. Obtain
several large copper or brass kettles, and set them up in a row,
either by tripods with iron rings, or by hanging them on a
cross-bar; clean them well, then collect the sap in buckets, if
possible, so that but little rain-water will be mixed with the sap,
and take care not to have any dead leaves in it. For every gallon of
the maple sap _add one measured ounce_ of clear lime-water, pass the
sap into the first kettle and evaporate; then, when it is reduced to
about one-half, dip it out into the second kettle, and skim it each
time; then into the next, and so on, until it has reached the last,
where it is reduced to syrup, and then may be thrown into a trough,
and granulated by beating it up with an oar.

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A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.

Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.

Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."

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