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Although sugar maple trees extend from Canada in the north to Virginia in the south and from New England to as far west as Wisconsin, most of the production of maple syrup takes place in Vermont, upstate New York, and southern Ontario and Quebec. The first people to tap these maple trees and boil down the sap to form maple syrup were the Native American Indian tribes. Foremost among these tribes were the Algonquins and the Crees of the Northeast.
After the Europeans settled in America, they learned how to harvest and make maple syrup, called “sinzibuckwud” by the Algonquins which means “drawn from wood,” from the local Indians. The pioneers improved on the Indians method of drawing sap (cutting a slash in the bark) by drilling a hole into the tree with an augur and then placing hollow wood taps into the holes to funnel the sap into buckets. After the buckets were filled with sap they were hauled to open kettles to be boiled down in order to evaporate off the water to leave maple syrup behind. This process often took place in a simple wooden structure for protection from the wind---hence the origin of the term, “sugar shack.”
This labor intensive process of making maple syrup has not changed much over the centuries which makes it difficult to mass produce maple syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make just one gallon of pure maple syrup. Another problem with making maple syrup in large quantity is that the geographic range of sugar maple trees capable of producing sap in adequate quantities is rather limited. Sugar maple trees were sent to Europe and early in the 19th century because it was thought that maple syrup would become the primary source for sugar in the world. However, because of the weather conditions in Europe, not enough maple syrup was produced to make it a profitable business in the production of sugar. This is because the maple trees will produce large amounts of sap only if there are subfreezing nights following by days with temperatures in the 40s over an extended period of time. This condition exists in North America but not in Europe. Eventually sugar beets, not maple trees became the biggest source for domestic sugar in Europe.
Another problem with the maple syrup business is that it takes 35 to 60 years to grow a tree to the right size for maple syrup production. This means that few farmers can start from scratch in that business without a lot of large maple trees already growing on their land.
In the Americas, with its large sugar cane plantations, it was much more economical to obtain sugar from this plant than from maple. As a result, the production of maple syrup declined as the 19th progressed. However, there was a brief resurgence in maple syrup sugar consumption just prior to and during the Civil War as a protest by many in the North against the slave labor used to harvest sugar cane in the South.
Although today the production of maple syrup continues to decline, the demand for maple syrup is on the increase. As a result there is a growing problem with counterfeit maple syrup made from corn syrup and maple flavoring. Consumers who want to ensure that they are buying authentic pure maple syrup should purchase this product only from reputable maple syrup sellers. Many of these sellers are available on the Internet and in addition to pure maple syrup, maple sugar and many kinds of maple candies can be purchased from them.
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