In 1690 Sabastien Rasles, a French missionary to the Abnakis, recorded the first settler attempt to make maple sugar. Since there were many large maple trees in the virgin forest, sap was seldom taken from tress under two feet in diameter. Tapping with an axe was used as late as 1860, but this treatment caused permanent damage to the trees and shortened their life. In 1750 the English taught the Indians to boil sap over an open fire using brass iron or copper kettles instead of placing hot stones in perishable wood and clay vessels. To catch the sap, hollowed-out ash or basswood troughs gradually were replaced with large-bottom buckets that sat on the ground. Before 1850 sap was lugged by hand from tree to fire and stored in molasses hogsheads. The boiling place was selected convenient to firewood. Two crotched sticks supported a pole from which three cast iron kettles hung. About 15 gallons of sap was poured into the largest kettle and then ladled into the smaller cauldrons as it thickened into syrup. In the early 1800's settlers started drilling holes with hand augers and inserting elder or sumac tubes in the tap holes. Unpainted pine or cedar buckets bound with ash hoops became popular. These were nailed into the tree with one long stave. Sap was carried in pine pails with small tops to prevent spillage. These custom spouts were replaced by mass produced Lathe-turned and drilled birch by the 1860's. By late 1800 the sugar house started to appear in the Vermont woods. This served as a shelter while sap was boiled into syrup in evaporator pans which started to replace cauldron kettles. With spring turning warmer, the sap stopped running bringing an end to the six week long season. Clean up chores included removing spouts and hauling the buckets and covers to the sugar house for storage. Buckets were stored upside down to prevent the hoops from loosening and falling off. In consideration of the tree itself, any healthy maple tree over 10 inches in diameter can be tapped. Early budding on soft maples make syrup bitter. Sap from the sugar (hard) maple is generally sweeter, makes more syrup per bucket of sap and tastes better all sugar season. Tapping is done by using a 7/16 inch fast cutting wood bit. The hole should be drilled 3 inches deep in good live wood, slanting slightly upward 6 to 8 inches away from previous holes. and a spout is inserted without pounding as this splits the wood. The tap hole should be belt-height or 2 to 3 feet above the ground. Compass location is not important although the warm side of the tree is favored. Rule of Thumb; 2 taps on 15-19 inch trees, 3 on 20 to 24 and 4 on 25 inch diameter and above. Trees can be grouped into an orchard called a "sugarbush" made up of trees that are old enough to tap (40 years), handy enough to allow economical sap collection and yields sap with a sugar content of at least 3%, thus producing 25 to 35 gallons of maple syrup per acre. Sap runs at about two drops per heart beat as the old saying goes. At that rate it will fill a 16 quart bucket in 8 hours. The production today is not much different then it was a hundred years ago, with the exception of the use of plastic tubing that runs from tree to tree as it winds its way down hills to the sugar house. Although sugaring is done for only a month and a half, the plastic lines are left all year round. This has added a new diminution to the landscape of New England as be once beautiful maple forests are now crisscrossed with black plastic tubing.
In addition to the artifacts and placards that abounded, the walls of the museum were done is creative murals depicting related scenes. As an added attraction, There is the Sugar house diorama which contains 121 hand carved pieces by Edward Raynor and his sister Barbara. Each character took about 5 hours to carve and paint. Working part time it took over three years to complete. The next to final stage of the museum is a movie in which the entire maple syrup process is redone. A few minutes later and we stepped into the final, and for me, best part of the show. A small display room containing a collection of old commercial maple syrup bottles and jars containing the four different kinds of maple syrup, from "fancy" or light to "dark amber" which is the richest, created depending on when the syrup was removed from the tree. I poured one, then the other, into a small white paper cup and sipped, catching the delicate flavor as it ran over my tongue. I went from fancy to dark to fancy, then back to dark again until it became quite evident that my plan did not include selecting the better of the breed. My wife finally dragged me off to the gift shop to pick out my very own bottle of this delightful substance. There are times when calories are just not that important.

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