Garden
o
VOL. LXV
INDIANAPOLIS, FEBRUARY 5,. 1910.
NO. 6
Written  for the Indiana Farmer:
METHOD     OF     MAKING     MAPIaE*
SUGAR.
By C.  J.  Wiltshire.
The best method is the one/which
secures the best possible quality and
the largest possible quantity with the
least expense and the least injury to
the trees. Since only about three per
cent of the total amount of sugar in
the tree is taken from it at one tapping
it is evident that any Injury to the tree
must come from improper tapping. It
is well for any owner of a sugar orchard to do or oversee the doing of
this himself, for if trusted to hired help
it is not always done as one  directs.
Tapping.
Tap the trees in fresh wood, not in
line with the old scars, as sap that Alters thru unhealthy wood will be colored more or less. From 1% to 2 inches is deep enough, as the sap circulates mostly in the layers of wood near
the surface, and as the pressure is
irom within outward and always greatest toward an outlet, all possible sap
will be obtained. It is best to use a
small bit, and the old practice of ross-
ing off the bark is pernicious, as but
few men will do this without cutting
to the wood, in many cases. %-inch
bit is large enough, and later if the
opening becomes sour before the season closes it may be enlarged with a %-
inch bit and become fresh and sweet
again. To get a good quality of sap
covered buckets must be used. It
matters little what they are made of,
provided they are sweet and clean. I
prefer tin but use wood also.
Gathering the Sap.
The quicker the process of transferring the sweet from the tree to the sirup
can or tub the more delicate will be the
flavor and the coloring. Sap should
be gathered each day that it runs, stored in cool covered tanks outside the
sugar house and boiled as rapidly as
possible. All sap should be strained
before boiling and sirup strained when
cold, as this removes the malate of
lime better. It cannot all be removed
by hot straining. Sirup boiled down
to 30 degrees test by saccharometer,
when hot, will test 11 pounds to the
gallon cold. Many can their sirup hot,
straining thru felt. I find my sirup
clearer to draw it into tubs and let it
settle over night; next morning turn
off the top strain and can cold. The
malate will have settled to the bottom and the sirup will be very clear.
Selling.
Sugar and sirup sell best put up in
"'at small packages. The square 11
pound sirup can the round can,, five
and ten pound packages of sugar, either in tin or wood and in small cakes.
There is a brisk demand for good sugar
in this form and the price is profitable.
When sirup sells at $1.25 per can and
sugar from 10 to 12 cents per pound in
five and ten pound packages with cakes
°f about two ounces in weight, often as
high as 2 0 cents per pound, there is no
erop the farmer' produces that pays so
wel'. It helps sales to have printed
labels, bearing the name of the farm
and its owner. It helps future sales,
for anyone purchasing a first class article will next year call  for  the  same
brand. Quality  is  the  main  consid
eration, and the best quality brings
enough better price to pay the producer for the extra labor it entails, and
we always feel better satisfied with
ourselves when we produce a prime article of anything.
his works to produce a good article.
Vermont has a maple sugar market
under the management of the sugar
men of the state, which aids materially in the selling of her sugar at a good
price.
Vermont.
New  Agricultural   Experiment  Station   Building,  Purdue University,  Laafayette.
Cattle  Barn,  Silo    and  Feeding  Pen at  Agricultural   Experiment  Station.
Pointers.
The Sugar Makers' Association of
Vermont have just closed their seventeenth annual meeting. In the addresses
before the meeting the following points
were emphasized by the speakers: lst
Absolute cleanliness of every part of
the sugar rig, from bucket to sirup
can. 2d. The rapid evaporation of
the sap, which should be gathered as
fast as it runs. 3d. The making of
the most and best of the product into
sirup and putting it up for market in
small neat packages. The tendency
is for smaller packages than hitherto.
4 th. Care of the orchard that the
trees may not be injured in tapping,
and the tapping of all available trees,
as the present supply of good maple
goods does not nearly equal the demand. 5th. The setting of more
trees, or the care of seedlings that
spring up, that they may grow and develop future sugar yielders. 6th. Care
all along the line of the work to produce the best possible article, as there
is little if any more cost to produce a
good article than a poor one and there
is a marked difference in price. The
man who makes poor sugar loses
enough on 1,000 pounds of sugar to riff
Written for the Indiana Farmer:
SPECIFIC CONSERVATION.
By Dr. G. Henri Bogart.
We are hearing so much about Gun-
ison tunnels, and Umatilla irrigation
that we are likely to be dazzled by
magnificent results and forget the vastly more important aggregates of little
things about us, which are under our
control.
The elements, grain by grain, overthrow more mountains, than thunderous mines of dynamite.
The magazines and daily press have
been ringing the changes oi. the claim
of James J. Hill, and of President
Brown of the Central lines of railroad
that our consumption of farm products is outstripping our  production.
I wish to cite a few homely Hoosier
evidences to the contrary, and at the
same time to show wherein real conservation is possible.
The Farmer, for December llth, relates how Chris King, of Milroy in
Rush county, produced Ben Davis apples worth $1,025 per acre and Baldwins, worth $2,290, equal to the best
results  in   Oregon,     and   yet,   with   30
counties in the fruit belt, we import
the most of our apples. Every farmer in this territory might equal Mr.
King's success.
Twelve years ago, John Roemer,
went out of the sheriff's office of
Franklin county, and with $4,000 available capital, bought a "worn out" farm
of clay upland. His friends regretted
his foolish investment, but Mr. Roemer
began draining, tiling, rotation of
crops, feeding all his products, and now
his   farm   is   better   than   bottom   land.
He had no outside resources, the
farm had to support itself and him,
and now he laughingly refuses $10,000
cash for it. The corn land which had
made an exceptional yield at thirty
bushels is regularly husking ninety. As
an investment, his $4,000 has gained
150 per cent profit in land value alone,
or 12 ^ per cent annually, besides supporting him. Lately he drove his
spring pigs to market and received a
check for $1,055.65, and the fall pigs
are in training for June delivery. Every
pig and every ear of corn is of the
year's raising on the farm.
He has doubly discounted the man
"who made two blades of grass grow,
where but one grew before;" he has
made three to grow.
Ten years ago, Richard Kerr bought
a worn, clay, upland farm, near Cedar
Grove, Franklin county. The previous
owner, a frugal, hard-working man,
had merely made a living off the land,
and it was badly run down. Mr. Kerr
went into debt for part of the land, but
the first step was the erection of ample
barn room for sheltering stock and
forage. He tells me that he considers every bushel of corn sold from a
farm as ten cents loss, half on the
succeeding crop and half on the permanent land feeding, and that the fodder is equal to the grain for the land.
Clover, rotation, farm feeding, and
now the land is equal to river bottom,
and he has bought more adjoining, and
has recently built a commodious home.
His farm had a wood lot, from which
the merchantable timber had been cut,
and . it was a tangle of briars and
thicket. One winter he cut this tangle
off, trimmed up the trees and left selected saplings in the thin places. Then
in spring he plowed it with an old-fashioned "jump shovel" and planted corn.
The crop yielded twenty bushels, paying for the clearing, and was sowed to
rye, grass and clover. Now it is as
nice a bit of pasture as could be found
anywhere; the trees are making good
growth, and instead of skunks and
weedseeds it yields beef, mutton, wool
and   leather. There  is  enough  such
worse than waste land in the state to
several times pasture the stock to produce  our meats,  woolens and  leather.
With the intelligent conservation
outlined in the above three instances,
carried out over Indiana, we would
more than quadruple our state's farm
output, increase the productive capacity of the ground to an ultimate pitch
impossible to estimate and, best of all,
enrich the men who do this general
public good. Such farming holds the
boys, too.
When intelligent mental effort accompanies physical toil, when results
accumulate, worth striving for, the
boy will stay, but mere automatic routine labor will necessarily drive away
the best of farm boys.
Brookville.