I was recently given the opportunity to contribute a chapter on the history of maple sugar and syrup production in the upcoming third edition of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual. This led me to look into the history and progression of such manuals and government guides in the United States.
The earliest stand-alone bulletin, guide, or pamphlet produced by a government agency comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1905 under the title The Maple Sugar Industry as Bulletin No. 59, published through the then Bureau of Forestry (today known as the U.S. Forest Service). Written by William F. Fox and William F. Hubbard, this bulletin was less of a guide or manual and more of a report or description of the current state of the maple industry. It was also notably dense in its description of the trees and desired conditions of the sugarbush and fairly light in its discussion of the process and equipment employed in gathering maple sap and making maple syrup and sugar. This is not especially surprising considering both Fox and Hubbard’s backgrounds as foresters and not sugarmakers. In fact, as best as my research can tell, neither Fox or Hubbard had any real experience as maple producers, both as youths or adults.
That is not to say that these men were without some knowledge, understanding, or admiration for maple sugar making, quite the opposite. William F. Fox, who was listed as collaborator for Bureau of Forestry and not a federal employee, was in fact the Superintendent of Forests for the State of New York, and a confidant of Gifford Pinchot and prominent leader in the growing field of forestry. Fox was also a decorated Civil War hero and well-know chronicler of the War. Fox first wrote about and advocated for maple sugar and syrup as an important forest product in the 1898 Annual Report of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forest of the State of New York. Prior to Bulletin 59, Fox published other writings and made presentations to such notable groups as the Vermont Maple Sugar Maker’s Association in the early 1900s.
Like Fox, William F. Hubbard also appears to have lacked any direct experience with sugaring and instead was well-educated, young Forestry Assistant with a Doctorate in forestry from Germany. Although Bulletin 59 was published in the later months of 1905, Hubbard tragically died in July of that year, a few months before the bulletin was released. At the young age of 28 Hubbard drowned when his canoe overturned near the Great Falls of the Potomac River a few miles north of Washington, DC.
In the following year, 1906, under the authorship of William F. Hubbard, the U.S. Department of Agriculture posthumously issued a new Farmer’s Bulletin No. 252 titled Maple Sugar and Sirup hat was a n abridged version of the information in Bulletin 59. These USDA bulletins from the federal government were new to the maple industry and not all were impressed. Maple equipment manufacturer Gustav H. Grimm, and one of the most influential voices in the industry at the time was quoted as saying that much of the information in Bulletin 252 was “way-off” and outdated.
In 1910 the U.S. Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry issued Bulletin No. 134 written by A. Hugh Bryan, a well-known chemist in their laboratory. This bulletin titled Maple-Sap Sirup: Its Manufacture, Composition, and Effects of Environment Thereon included a short description of the process of making maple sugar but largely discussed the methods and results of detailed chemical analyses of maple sap and maple syrup and sugar.
In spite of his passing in 1905, Hubbard’s writing, but curiously not Fox’s (who was not a USDA employee), continued to serve as the foundation for subsequent releases of new bulletins by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1912, Hubbard’s earlier bulletin was combined with Bryan’s in U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin No. 516 under the title The Production of Maple Sirup and Sugar. In comparison to earlier bulletins, No. 516 was more manual-like in its format and information, suggesting that, despite his being listed as the Chief of the Sugar Laboratory and a chemist, A. Hugh Bryan had expanded his breadth of knowledge with regard to the maple industry. Farmer’s Bulletin No. 516 was revised and reissued in 1918 under the same title and authorship.
In 1924, Bryan and Hubbard’s Bulletin 516 was re-issued as Farmer’s Bulletin 1366 with the addition of a third author, a U.S.D.A. Bureau of Plant Industry Chemist named Sidney F. Sherwood. With a 1924 publication date, Bulletin 1366 came out after the death of both the primary authors. William F Hubbard had died in 1905 and A. Hugh Bryan died in 1920 at age 46, a victim of the influenza pandemic that struck North America from 1918-1920. It was left to Sidney Sheppard to carry the Bulletin forward.
With its release in 1924 Farmers’ Bulletin 1366 was made available for a mere 5 cents, although many copies were distributed to sugar makers free of charge. Bulletin 1366 continued as the U.S.D.A. guide to sugarmakers for another 20 years with Bryan, Hubbard, and Sherwood as the authors. It was reissued in 1935 and 1937 under the description of “slightly revised” although it is unclear who was responsible for the revision work.
There was a lull in the updating and issuance of maple syrup bulletins or guides by the USDA during the war years and for some time after. This may have been in reaction to the increase in similar publications coming out of the research and extension branches of many universities and state departments of agriculture or forestry in the maple syrup region starting in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s (Vermont being an exception with department of agriculture booklets dating to the 19-teens).
With the assistance and leadership of Charles O. Willits, the US Department of Agriculture got back online in 1958 with the issuance of a new comprehensive manual for producers, published as Agricultural Handbook No. 134. Willits first began his long association with the maple industry when he came to work in the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in the late 1930s where he began by addressing the concern with lead contamination in syrup. With a move to the USDA Eastern Regional Utilization Research and Development Laboratory in Philadelphia as an analytical chemist in 1940 followed by a request to lead a new maple syrup unit following World War II, Willits was put in a position to learn as much as he could about all aspects of maple syrup production.
Willits assembled the considerable new information he had gathered and absorbed into a new and comprehensive manual for the maple syrup industry. Published in 1958, under the title Maple Sirup Producers Manual, the title was a well-chosen reflection of its difference from the previous USDA bulletins, featuring dozens or illustrative photographs with a focus on bringing the maple industry information on the newest methods, equipment, and science and technology available. Willits revised and expanded the manual in 1963, nearly doubling the page numbers over the 1958 version.
Upon reflection, it is impressive (to me at least) that Willits research, assembled, and wrote the entire manual himself, at a time when he was extremely busy with coordinating and conducting research, planning and hosting the triennial conference on maple products. In 1965 another revised version came out under Willits’ name and ten years later with the assistance of a second author, Claude H. Hills, a third version was released. The purchase price of the Agricultural Handbook No. 134 was initially 60 cents in 1958, although again, many copies were distributed at no cost. The revised editions from the 1960s saw the price jump to 70 cents, and then to $2.50 with the 1976 edition.
With the retirement of C.O. Willits in the early 1980s and the discontinuation of the maple syrup unit at the USDA Eastern Region Lab in Philadelphia, the maple industry was left without a champion for continuation of the Maple Syrup Producers Manual. Recognizing the need and desire to continue to provide the industry with an up to date manual, participants of the 1988 North American Maple Syrup Council formed a committee to make plans to begin the revision process and bring forward a new version of the manual. With an eye towards serving the entire maple community, both in the United States and Canada, the following version of the manual was titled The North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual. In contrast to past manuals and bulletins that were written by one or two or three individuals, the North American Manual would have separate chapters authored by individual experts, sharing the workload and allowing authors to focus on their areas of knowledge and expertise. In the end it took more years than anyone expected for the new manual to be released but in 1996, with the help of The Ohio State University Extension, the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual was published in both hard cover and soft cover as Extension Bulletin 856.
Ten years later in 2006 coming in at a whopping 329 pages, a new and improved, revised Second Edition of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual was released, again with the assistance of The Ohio State University Extension. In the not too distant future (sometime in 2021), we will see the Third Edition of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual released, continuing this tradition and important work of bringing together useful and valuable up to date information on maple syrup production and distributing it to the maple producers in North America.