Maple sugar was an important part of the native Americans’ diet, worked into bear fat, or mixed with corn meal to make a light, compact provision for journeys For the colonists, maple sugar was cheaper and more available than the heavily taxed cane sugar from the West Indies Even after the Revolution, many Americans found a moral reason for preferring maple sugar to cane; cane sugar was produced largely with slave labor Toward the end of the nineteenth century, cane and beet sugar became so cheap that the demand for maple sugar declined steeply Today the production of maple syrup is a cottage industry concentrated in the eastern Canadian provinces, especially Quebec, and in the American Northeast The Sap Run The maple family originated in China or Japan and numbers some 100 species throughout the Northern Hemisphere Of the four North American species good for sugaring, the hard or rock maple, Acer saccharum, produces sap of greater quality and in greater quantity than the others, and accounts for most of the syrup produced today In the spring, sap is collected from the first major thaw until the leaf buds burst, at which point the tree fluids begin to carry substances that give the syrup a harsh flavor The sap run is improved by four conditions: a severe winter that freezes the roots, snow cover that keeps the roots cold in the spring, extreme variations in temperatures from day to night, and good exposure to the sun The northeastern states and eastern Canadian provinces meet these needs most consistently Sap does run in other trees in early spring, and some of them — birch, hickory, and elm, for example — have been tapped for sugar But maples produce more and sweeter sap than any other tree, thanks to an intricate physical mechanism by which the tree forces sugars from the previous growing season out ...sugaring, the hard or rock maple, Acer saccharum, produces sap of greater quality and in greater quantity than the others, and accounts for most of the syrup produced today In the spring, sap is collected from the. .. that freezes the roots, snow cover that keeps the roots cold in the spring, extreme variations in temperatures from day to night, and good exposure to the sun The northeastern states and eastern... provinces meet these needs most consistently Sap does run in other trees in early spring, and some of them — birch, hickory, and elm, for example — have been tapped for sugar But maples produce more and sweeter sap