Among our more agreeable recollections of the wilderness are those
associated with the making of _maple sugar_. Our first taste of this
sweetest of woodland luxuries was received from the hands of an Indian,
into whose wigwam we had wandered from our father’s dwelling on one of
the Saturday afternoons of our boyhood. It was many years ago, and long
before the frontier of Michigan was transformed into a flourishing
member of the national confederacy. Since that time we have not only
eaten our full proportion of the luxury in question, both in wigwam and
cabin, but we have seen it extensively manufactured by the Indian, as
well as the white man; and we now purpose to discourse upon the article
itself, and upon a few incidents connected with its manufacture.
Maple sugar is made from the sap of a tree, known by the several names
of rock maple, hard maple, and sugar maple, which is found in great
abundance in various portions of the Union, but chiefly in the northern
States. It is a lofty and elegantly proportioned tree, and its foliage
is particularly luxuriant; and, when touched by the frosts of autumn, is
pre-eminently brilliant. The wood is also highly esteemed for the beauty
of its fibre, which consists of concentrical circles, resembling the eye
of a bird; and hence the term _birds_-eye maple.
Generally speaking, the sugar-making season commences early in April, is
universally considered as one of festivity, and seldom continues more
than about four weeks. The sudden transition of the temperature from
winter to spring is essential to its production, for at this season
alone does the vital principle of the tree pass in large quantities from
the roots into its branches. Hence it is that, while making this
passage, the sap has to be withdrawn; and this is accomplished by making
an incision in the tree some three feet from the ground, and receiving
the liquid in a vessel prepared for the purpose. And it has been
observed that, when a frosty night is followed by a dry and sunny day,
the sap flows abundantly, at which times three or four gallons are
obtained from a single tree in twenty-four hours. The process employed
for converting the sap into sugar is perfectly simple, and consists in
boiling it first into a sirup and then into a more tangible substance.
Of this sugar there are two kinds, viz., the hard or cake sugar, and
that of a friable character, which is produced by constantly stirring
the thick sirup when it is becoming cool. The taste of the sap or juice,
when taken from the tree, is just sweet enough to be noticed; and though
we have never ascertained the quantity commonly obtained from a single
tree, we have been told that a very fruitful tree, in a good season, may
be made to yield five pounds of the best sugar. To the human palate this
juice is not generally agreeable, but wild and domestic animals are said
to be inordinately fond of it, and slake their thirst with it whenever
they can. Although a sufficient quantity of maple sugar has never been
manufactured in this country to rank it among our articles of
exportation, it has, for many years past, been about the only sugar used
by a large number of people—especially those who live in the more
thickly-wooded districts of the States, and those inhabiting the
northern and western frontiers of the United States and Canada. In the
opinion of all who manufacture the article it is held in high
estimation, both as a luxury and on account of its nutrition. In regard
to this last quality, we believe it is superior to all other sugars; for
we know, from personal observations, that when eaten by the Indian
children, during the manufacturing season, they become particularly
hearty, though exclusively confined to it as an article of food for
weeks at a time.
From the very nature of the business, the making of maple sugar is
commonly carried on in an encampment, and we now purpose to describe the
various kinds with which we are acquainted, beginning, as a matter of
course, with an Indian camp. We are speaking of the remote past, and of
an encampment of Ottawa Indians, in one of the maple forests skirting
the western shore of Green Bay. It is in the month of April, and the
hunting season is at an end. Albeit, the ground is covered with snow,
the noonday sun has become quite powerful, and the annual offering has
been made to the Great Spirit, by the medicine men, of the first product
of one of the earliest trees in the district. This being the preparatory
signal for extensive business, the women of the encampment proceed to
make a large number of wooden troughs (to receive the liquid treasure),
and, after these are finished, the various trees in the neighborhood are
tapped, and the juice begins to run. In the mean time, the men of the
party have built the necessary fires, and suspended over them their
earthen, brass, or iron kettles. The sap is now flowing in copious
streams, and from one end of the camp to the other is at once presented
an animated and romantic scene, which continues, without interruption,
day and night until the end of the sugar season. The principal
employment to which the men devote themselves is that of lounging about
the encampment, shooting at marks, and playing the moccasin game; while
the main part of the labor is performed by the women, who not only
attend to the kettles, but employ all their leisure time in making the
beautiful birchen mocucks, for the preservation and transportation of
the sugar when made; the sap being brought from the troughs to the
kettles by the boys and girls. Less attention than usual is paid by the
Indians at such times to their meals, and, unless game is very easily
obtained, they are quite content to depend upon the sugar alone. If an
Indian happens to return from the river with a fish, he throws it
without any ceremony into the boiling sap, dipping it out, when cooked,
with a ladle or stick; and therefore it is that we often find in the
maple sugar of Indian manufacture the bones of a trout, or some more
unworthy fish. That even a bird, a rabbit, or an opossum, is sometimes
thrown into the kettle instead of a fish is beyond a doubt; and we are
not positively certain that the civilized fashion of eating jelly with
roast lamb may not be traced to the barbarous custom of cooking animals
in hot sap. That this sap itself, when known to be clear and reduced to
the consistency of molasses, is a palatable article, we are ready to
maintain against the world; and we confess that, when not quite so
fastidious as now, we have often eaten it in truly dangerous quantities,
even in the cabin of an Indian. As we have already intimated, the sugar
season is dependent upon the weather; but, even when it is prolonged to
four or five weeks, it continues from beginning to end to be one of
hilarity and gladness. At such times, even the wolfish-looking dogs seem
to consider themselves as entitled to the privilege of sticking their
noses into the vessels of sap not yet placed over the fire. And in this
manner does the poor Indian welcome returning spring.
It is now about the middle of June, and some fifty birchen canoes have
just been launched upon the waters of Green Bay. They are occupied by
our Ottawa sugar-makers, who have started upon a pilgrimage to Mackinaw.
The distance is near two hundred miles, and as the canoes are heavily
laden, not only with mocucks of sugar, but with furs collected by the
hunters during the past winter, and the Indians are traveling at their
leisure, the party will probably reach their desired haven in the course
of ten days. Well content with their accumulated treasures, both the
women and the men are in a particularly happy mood, and many a wild song
is heard to echo over the placid lake. As the evening approaches, day
after day they seek out some convenient landing-place, and, pitching the
wigwams on the beach, spend a goodly portion of the night carousing and
telling stories around their camp fires, resuming their voyage after a
morning sleep, long after the sun has risen above the blue waters of the
east. Another sunset hour, and the cavalcade of canoes is quietly
gliding into the crescent bay of Mackinaw, and, reaching a beautiful
beach at the foot of a lofty bluff, the Indians again draw up their
canoes, again erect their wigwams. And, as the Indian traders have
assembled on the spot, the more improvident of the party immediately
proceed to exhibit their sugar and furs, which are usually disposed of
for flour and pork, blankets and knives, guns, ammunition, and a great
variety of trinkets, long before the hour of midnight. That the
remainder of this night is devoted to feasting and dancing, and
tumultuous recreation, is a matter of course. But the trader who would
obtain from the Indians their more unique articles of merchandize,
usually visits the encampment on the following morning, when he is
always certain of obtaining from the young women, on the most reasonable
terms, their fancy mocucks of sugar, all worked over with porcupine
quills; and a great variety of beautifully worked moccasins, and fancy
bags, made of the sweet-smelling deer skin. In about a week after their
arrival at Mackinaw, the Ottawa Indians begin to sigh for the freedom of
the wilderness; and, before the trader has left his bed on some pleasant
morning, there is nothing to be seen on the beach at Mackinaw but the
smoking embers of a score or two of watch-fires.
We would now conduct our readers into the sugar camp of a Frenchman. It
is situated in one of the maple forests of Michigan, on the banks of the
river Raisin, and within half a mile of the rude comfortable dwelling of
the proprietor. Very much the same process is here pursued in making the
sugar that we have already described, only that a large proportion of
the labor is performed by the men and boys, the women participating in
the employment more for the purpose of carefully packing away the sugar
when made, and having a little romantic sport in the way of eating hot
sugar in the aisles of the church-like forest. The season of winter with
our Frenchman has been devoted almost exclusively to the pleasures of
life, and the making of sugar is the first and probably the only really
lucrative business which he ever transacts. By the term lucrative we
mean a business which allows him to lay aside a little spare money, for,
generally speaking (like the class to which he belongs in the
north-west), he is perfectly satisfied if the agricultural products of
his small farm yield him a comfortable living. Maple sugar and maple
molasses are considered by our friend and his family as among their
greatest luxuries; and, while he makes a point of taking a goodly
quantity to market, he never fails to keep a plentiful supply of both
under his own roof. In transporting his sugar (as well as all other
marketable articles) to the neighboring town, he employs a rude
two-wheeled vehicle, made exclusively of wood, and drawn by a Canadian
pony. On his first visit to the town after the sugar season is ended, he
will be accompanied by his entire family, decked in their more tidy
garments; and, before his return home, you may be certain that the
Catholic priest, whose church he regularly attends, will receive a
handsome present of the newly-made sugar, with perhaps a small keg of
the delicious maple sirup or molasses. And thus does the Frenchman of
the frontier welcome the return of spring.
But we have spent some pleasant days in the sugar camps of the Dutch
yeomanry on the eastern and southern side of the Catskill Mountains, and
we must not omit to pay our respects to them. The very best of sugar is
made in this region, and much of it into solid cakes of various sizes,
from one pound to twenty. It is manufactured here both for home
consumption and the market, and the price which it has usually commanded
during the last ten years has been about one York shilling per pound.
The labor in this region is about equally divided between the women and
the men, and considerable attention is devoted to the cultivation of the
maple-tree. In cooling their sugar, or rather in performing the business
called “sugaring off,” the Dutch employ immense wrought-iron pans, which
are undoubtedly a great improvement upon the Indian and French fashions,
which are simply no fashions at all, since the kettle employed to boil
the sugar are used to cool it off.
But the Dutch of whom we are speaking, those especially who are more
wealthy than their neighbors, have a very sensible mode of winding up
their sugar-making labors by giving what they term a “_Sugar-bee_,” or
party. The elements which go to make up one of these rustic
entertainments it would be difficult to describe. We may mention,
however, that everybody is invited, old men and their wives, young men
and maidens; that the principal recreation is that of dancing to the
music of a fiddle; that a most sumptuous and excessively miscellaneous
feast is spread before the multitude; that the people assemble in the
afternoon, and generally succeed in getting home an hour or two _after_
the break of day. That an abundance of maple sugar is met with on these
occasions will be readily imagined, and we may add that, in those
districts where temperance societies are unpopular, the sugar is taken
considerably adulterated in whisky.
The last sugar-bee to which we ever had the pleasure of being invited,
while once sojourning among the Catskills, was given by an old Dutchman
who resided on the side of a mountain, some _ten_ miles from our
temporary abode. We started for his house about sundown, in a large
lumber-wagon, which was packed by no less than eight buxom damsels and
four young men besides ourself. Although when stepping into the wagon we
were a perfect stranger to nearly all the party, we were received as an
old friend. The damsels were in high glee; we had a reckless driver and
a span of capital horses, and of course the young men were not at all
backwards in their deportment. The first five miles of the road was very
good, and, as we rattled along, the songs, uncouth and shrill, which
were sung awakened many a mountain echo. But while all this was going
on, and other things which we have not time to mention, the sky became
overcast, and in a short time it began to rain, and a most intense
darkness settled upon the world. Our driver became bewildered, and the
first that _we_ knew was that _he_ had lost the road, and that our
horses had halted directly in front of a huge stump. Having thus
unexpectedly been brought to a stand, the male members of the party
proceeded to reconnoitre, and one of them fortunately discovered a light
at the distance of half a mile. Towards this light did the entire party
direct their march, and about twelve o’clock succeeded in reaching a
log-cabin, which was inhabited by an old hunter; and as the guests of
this man did the party, in a very disagreeable mood, spend the remainder
of the night. Long before the mists had left the valleys on the
following morning, the party had worked its way out of the woods, and
for a week afterwards we were frequently complimented for the important
part that we had taken in the last _sugar-bee_.
We cannot conclude this article without remarking that maple sugar of
rare quality is manufactured in the States of Vermont, New Hampshire,
and Maine; but as we have never visited that section of the Union in the
spring we cannot, from personal observation, speak of the New England
sugar camps. That the maple sugar usually offered for sale in the Boston
and New York markets is chiefly brought from this section of country we
know to be a fact, and it is one which forcibly illustrates the true
idea of Yankee enterprise.
P. S.—Since writing the above, we have had the pleasure of reading an
interesting description of _a maple sugar camp_, by the eminent
ornithologist Mr. Audubon, from which we gather the following
particulars, viz., that the juice of the sugar maple was to him a most
refreshing and delicious beverage; that it takes ten gallons of this
juice to make one pound of grained sugar; that the best of the sirup is
made at the close of the sugar season; and that the sugar maple is found
in abundance from Maine to Louisiana, invariably growing on rich and
elevated grounds.