My new book on maple history has hit the streets, titled A Sugarbush Like None Other: Adirondack Maple Syrup and the Horse Shoe Forestry Company. This book is the culmination of a number of years of archival and field research into the story and historic remains of Abbot Augustus Low’s turn of the century industrial scale maple syrup operation deep in the woods of the Adirondack wilderness of New York state. The size and complexity of A.A. Low’s maple operation was like nothing ever seen, either before, or for a long time after. As described in the eBay listing for online orders:
A sugarbush of 50,000 taps, a network of pipelines to carry sap from the woods to collection points, with sap boiled on colossal evaporators in a series of syrup plants sounds like a description of a modern industrial maple syrup operation. For Abbot Augustus Low’s Horse Shoe Forestry Company 120 years ago, it was a novel attempt at making maple syrup in the Adirondack wilderness on a scale never before experienced. This is the interesting tale of how from 1896 to 1908 one man, A.A. Low and his army of workers, carved an industrial landscape out of the forest, complete with railroads, electrification, mills, dams, a private camp, and the centerpiece maple syrup operation.
The book is illustrated with dozens of photographs, historic and recent, as well as original maps, and extensive documentation and references. With a soft cover format, the story is told across the following eleven chapters spanning 202 pages.
1 Introduction
2 A.A. Low – The Man and His Family
3 The Industrial Landscape and Estate of A.A. Low
4 Maple Sugaring in the Late Nineteenth Century
5 Making Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar at Horseshoe
6 Grasse River Sugarbush
7 Wake Robin Sugarbush
8 Maple Valley Sugarbush
9 Syrup House and Sugarbush Operations
10 An End and New Beginnings
11 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
A Sugarbush Like None Other is available for immediate purchase through eBay at this link and will be on the shelf of bookstores and gifts shops in the northern New York and Adirondack region later this year. For additional information on the book visit www.sugarbushlikenoneother.com.