of storage in the trunk and into the outer, actively growing zone, the cambium Maple Sugaring Without Metal or Fire In 1755, a young colonist was captured and “adopted” by a small group of natives in the region that is now Ohio In 1799 he published his story in An Account of the Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col James Smith, which includes several descriptions of how the Indians made maple sugar Here’s the most ingenious method We had no large kettles with us this year, and the squaws made the frost, in some measure, supply the place of fire, in making sugar Their large bark vessels, for holding the stock-water, they made broad and shallow; and as the weather is very cold here, it frequently freezes at night in sugar time; and the ice they break and cast out of the vessels I asked them if they were not throwing away the sugar? they said no; it was water they were casting away, sugar did not freeze and there was scarcely any in that ice… I observed that after several times freezing, the water that remained in the vessel, changed its colour and became brown and very sweet Syrup Production From colonial times to the 20th century, sugar producers collected the sap by punching a small hole in the maple tree, inserting a wooden or metal spout into the cambium, and hanging a bucket into which the sap dripped This picturesque collection method has mostly given way to systems of plastic taps and tubing, which carry the sap from many trees to a central holding tank Over a six-week season, the taps remove around 10% of a tree’s sugar stores, in an average of 5 to 15 gallons/20–60 liters per tree (some give as much as 80 gallons) It takes around 40 parts of sap to make 1 part ...out of the vessels I asked them if they were not throwing away the sugar? they said no; it was water they were casting away, sugar did not freeze and there was scarcely any in that ice…... after several times freezing, the water that remained in the vessel, changed its colour and became brown and very sweet Syrup Production From colonial times to the 20th century, sugar producers collected the sap by punching a small hole in the maple... plastic taps and tubing, which carry the sap from many trees to a central holding tank Over a six-week season, the taps remove around 10% of a tree’s sugar stores, in an average of 5 to 15 gallons/20–60 liters per