History from OHA: The Tradition of Maple Sugaring

Envision a steaming stack of your favorite pancakes glistening with pure maple syrup — or perhaps pieces of sweet maple-sugar candy melting in your mouth, or even maple butter spread on toast or cookies. Sound delicious? Well, where does all that natural sweetness come from and how is it made?

Although Vermont is usually touted as having the best maple products in the U.S., New York has a long tradition of making quality maple sugar, syrup, and other products. According to the website, nysmaple.com, “New York State is home to the largest resource of tappable maple trees within the United States, and over 2,000 maple sugarmakers.” That includes Central New York, part of a “maple sugar belt” that extends from Pennsylvania to Vermont.

Through the years, maple sugar and syrup have been made throughout Central New York in family-owned sugar bushes. But, “What’s a sugar bush?” Contrary to the name, a sugar bush isn’t one plant but a grove of maple trees cultivated to produce maple sap that is converted into sugar and syrup. The tradition of collecting maple sap to create syrup and sugar goes back centuries, first to Native Americans, then European settlers, who tapped maple trees to gather sap and boil it into tasty confections. Maple sugaring is one of the agricultural processes in the Northeast that is indigenous and not imported from Europe. 

Since the early 19th century, Central New Yorkers have generated and consumed maple products. In the early spring, the Syracuse newspapers would begin to advertise the availability of various maple creations for sale, including maple molasses. In March 1878, the Syracuse Journal reported that “sugar making is coming right along and farmers' children will soon be stickier than so many postage stamps.” The newspapers also warned consumers that they may actually have purchased maple sugar from previous years disguised as the current year’s batch. In March 1879, the Journal printed a caveat emptor message for maple-sugar lovers: “‘Too little frost and too much snow for a good sugar year,’ says a prophet, and yet there is plenty of “new maple sugar” in market.’” That same month, the Syracuse Journal referred to the children who would soon crave the sweet taste of maple products: “The sap bushes are now in their glory of hot sugar and syrup, while the juvenile stomach of many a country urchin is groaning accordingly.” Maple syrup sold for $1.25 per gallon that year; today it sells for $50.

By the end of the 19th century, the business of maple sugaring had greatly advanced. Gone were the days when maple trees were severely gashed and mutilated to release the sap, a method some critics had described as barbaric. Newer, less invasive techniques were used. Instead of gashing the trees with an axe, farmers drove small iron spiles into the tree that acted as spigots, greatly reducing disfigurement and waste, and allowing the trees to heal themselves in a single growing season. 

Methods for converting the sap into sugar and syrup also improved. In the “good ol’ days, farmers boiled the sap in large open kettles hung above roaring fires. Evaporation was quite slow and boilers worked day and night for about a week to boil off the moisture from sap collected from between 200 and 500 trees. At the turn of the 20th century, farmers forsook boiling in open kettles and began using tin or galvanized iron-sap evaporators that allowed the sap to trickle through a spigot into divided compartments. This process reduced the time and fuel needed to convert about 40 gallons of sap into one gallon of syrup. The syrup was either drawn off for sale or further boiled to become sugar. At this time, sugar bushes in the towns of Fabius, LaFayette, and Pompey were the largest maple-sugar producers in Onondaga County. Following in a close second were the towns of Tully, Otisco, Spafford, and Marcellus. 

More than 100 years ago, the ideal time to tap maple trees in Onondaga County was during the last days of February and the month of March. Warmer days, cold nights, and snow about the tree roots were conducive to retrieving the principal amount of sap. When the sugar-maple buds began to grow and became sticky the profitable sugar season was done. Back then, maple sugaring was tightly tied to the weather. All this is still true today. 

The best temperature for maple sap to flow is a combination of below-freezing nights and above-freezing days. Within Onondaga County today, the centuries-old business of tapping trees, boiling sap, and creating sweet treats is still a thriving business. Hobbyist and professional maple sugar and syrup producers can be found in Jordan, Memphis, Skaneateles, Syracuse, and Tully. Since 1995, the New York State Maple Producers Association has hosted “Maple Weekend,” a time for maple lovers to visit about 160 maple producers across New York, learn more about traditional maple production, see demonstrations, and, best of all, sample pure maple syrup. Maple Weekend in 2016 was scheduled for March 19-20 and April 2-3.            

Thomas Hunter is the curator of museum collections at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) (www.cnyhistory.org), located at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse.