There have, until recently, been but two general sources of our supply
of sugar--the sugar-cane of the South, and the sugar-maple of the North.
Beet-sugar will not be extensively manufactured in this country. We now
have added the Sorgho, or Chinese sugar-cane, and the Imphee, or African
sugar-cane, adapted to the North and the South, flourishing wherever
Indian corn will grow, and raised as easily and surely, and much in the
same way. Of the methods of making sugar from the old sugar-cane of the
South, we need give no account. It is not an article of general domestic
manufacture. It is made on a large scale on plantations, and is in
itself simple, and easily learned by the few who become sugar-planters.
The process of manufacturing sugar from the maple-tree is very simple
and everywhere known. It is to be regretted that our sugar-maples are
being so extensively destroyed, and that those we pretend to keep for
sugar-orchards are so unmercifully hacked up, in the process of
extracting the sap. To so tap the trees as to do them the least possible
injury, is a matter of much importance. Whether it should be done by
boring and plugging up with green maple-wood after the season is over,
or be done by cutting a small gash with an axe and leaving open, has
been a disputed point. Many prefer the axe, and think the tree will be
less blackened in the wood, and will last longer, provided it be
judiciously performed. Cut a small, smooth gash; one year tap the tree
low, and another high, and on alternate sides; scatter the wounds, made
from year to year, as much as possible. Another process of tapping is
now most popular with all who have tried it. Bore into the tree half an
inch, with a bit not larger than an inch, slanting slightly up, that
standing sap or water may not blacken the wood. Make the spout out of
hoop-iron one and a fourth inches wide; cut the iron, with a cold
chisel, into pieces four inches long; grind one end sharp; lay the
pieces over a semicircular groove in a stick of hard wood, and place an
iron rod on it lengthwise over the groove--slight blows with a hammer
will bend it. These can be driven into the bark, below the hole made by
the bit. They need not extend to the wood, and hence make no wound at
all. If the wound dries before the season is over, deepen it a little by
boring again, or by taking out a small piece with a gouge. This process
will injure the trees less than any other. The spouts will be cheaper
than wooden ones, and may last twenty years. Always hang buckets on
wrought nails, that may be drawn out. Buckets made of tin, to hold three
or four gallons, need cost only about twenty-five cents each, and, with
good care, may last twenty years. A crook in the wire of the rim will
make a good place to hang upon the nail. A hole bored in the ear of
other buckets will answer the same purpose. In all windy situations, the
bucket must be near the end of the spout, or much will be lost by being
blown over by the wind. Great care to keep all vessels used, clean and
sweet, and not burn the sugar in finishing it, will enable any one to
succeed in making good maple-sugar. The various forms in which it is put
up, and the manner of draining, are familiar to all makers. It is only
necessary to add, that there are few small farms on which the
sugar-maple will grow, where there might not be raised two or three
hundred maples, within fifteen or twenty years, that would add greatly
to the beauty, comfort, and value of the farm. On the highway as
shade-trees, or on the side of lots, they would be very ornamental and
profitable, without doing injury. We can not too strongly recommend
raising sugar-maples. Always cultivate trees that will bear fruit, yield
sugar, or be good for timber.
Sorgho, or Chinese sugar-cane, is raised much as Indian corn--only, it
will bear some ten or twelve stalks in a hill, instead of three or four.
In all parts of our continent, it produces enormous crops of stalks. The
trials thus far indicate, that the quantity of saccharine matter it
contains is not quite equal to that of the common sugar-cane; but, with
the necessary facilities for manufacturing, it makes quite as good sugar
and as fine sirups as the other cane. Suitable machinery, that need not
be expensive, owned by a neighborhood of farmers, may enable all
Northern men, where other cane will not grow, to make their own sugar
cheaper than to buy. But it will be made probably by large
establishments as other sugar. We give no method of making it. The
subject is so new, that every method of manufacture finds its way into
all the newspapers, and what might appear the best to-day would be
quite antiquated to-morrow. We have seen as fine sugars and sirups, of
all the different grades, made from this new cane, as any others we have
ever tasted. The question is settled that imphee and sorgho will make
good sugar in abundance. A few years will place such sugars among the
great staple products of the country.