The Enduring Contribution of The Maple Sugar Book by Helen and Scott Nearing

By Matthew M. Thomas

The Maple Sugar Book by Helen and Scott Nearing is arguably THE most read book on the subject of maple sugar and syrup. It has always interested me how, in its over 70 years of being in print, this book has continued to serve as such a significant guide book for entry level and hobbyists syrup makers. Even with a variety of more sophisticated and technical guides and handbooks available from state and federal agencies, often for free, The Maple Sugar Book has been as popular, or even a more popular source for how-to information than all the other technical publications.

Tackling the topic of maple sugaring from the perspective of practitioners as opposed to researchers was no easy task and gave the Nearings a certain freedom to share what they had learned and come to believe about maple sugaring. At that time research programs in maple industry research were in their infancy as formal maple research institutions like the Proctor Maple Research Center, Cornell Maple Program, or the USDA maple program, were just getting started. Perhaps, part of the book’s enduring appeal has been the charm of its more romantic and down-home presentation, in contrast to the technical presentation of the government and university publications.

The Nearings purchased their maple woods near Jamaica, Vermont in 1934, complete with an aging wood framed sugar house, on land adjacent to the farm they bought the year before. Soon after, they added a second new sugarhouse built of concrete with a metal roof. For their first six years, they operated the sugarbush and sugarhouse cooperatively with their neighbors Floyd and Zoe Hurd, dividing the seasons’ products on shares based on each family’s relative contribution of land, equipment, and labor that season. As an example of their cooperative model, when the new sugarhouse was put in, the Nearings paid for the construction of the building and their neighbors the Hurds, paid for a new evaporator.

The Nearings ascribed to a vegan lifestyle and philosophy that was not supportive of the use of draft horses or oxen, although they did use a horse for the first couple of sugaring seasons., Likewise, they preferred to rely on trucks and tractors as little as possible. However, gathering maple sap completely by hand was heavy, difficult work, so in 1935, wanting to streamline and reduce the labor requirements of gathering and transporting sap, the Nearings began installing a metal pipeline system.

The Nearings’ pipeline network was made of interconnected sections of one inch iron pipe that rested on the ground in a dendritic pattern. Running downhill at 100-foot intervals, it featured stand pipes or dump stations made of pails attached to the horizontal pipeline, and functioning like funnels. It would be interesting to know what was the actual cost of installation and maintenance of such a system.

For the usual division of labor within the Nearing sugarbush, Scott was primarily tasked with the woods work, such as tapping and sap gathering, whereas Helen oversaw the work in the sugarhouse such as boiling sap, bottling syrup, and making sugar and candies, as well as packaging orders and handling any marketing and sales during the rest of the year.

Of course they could not do all the work with just the two of them and did make use of the assistance of their neighbors. Their Forest Farms operation gathered sap from as many as 4200 buckets, with 80% of their syrup grading as fancy. Their syrup did well in judging competitions, scoring as high as second in the Vermont state judging in 1950. Most years they made around 1000 gallons of syrup which earned them about $5000, with a good portion made into sugar and candies.

Through the 1940s and early 1950s, the Nearings took great advantage of the mail order trade from their Forest Farms, selling a wide variety of maple syrup and what are today called “value added products.” Everything from pure maple syrup in quart, half gallon, and gallon cans, as well as “sweet old lady” bottes, an early variation of fancy glass. They also made soft maple sugar and granulated sugar in special hand painted wooden boxes, wooden buckets, and miniature birchbark mokuks. They also offered unique maple products like nut pattie cakes, maple pennies, and maple lollipops. In addition to mail order cash sales, where possible they traded maple syrup and sugar for other harder to get goods and products they desired, such as citrus, walnuts, olive oil, or raisins from California.

Growing disillusioned with land development in their area and a proposed ski area on nearby Stratton Mountain, in 1952 the Nearings sold their Forest Farms and sugarbush to George and Jackie Breen and moved to Maine, bring an end to their maple sugaring business that was at the heart of their model and successful execution of a sustainable back to the land lifestyle.

From my perspective, the book’s contribution to documenting and sharing the history of maple syrup and sugar is unmatched and is one of the most important texts to be read for anyone interested in maple history. It still is the best source in a single volume for historical references and accounts of maple sugaring from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The book is both a telling of the history of maple sugaring and itself an important piece of maple history for the impact it has made to telling the story of maple and showing people a path to making their own maple syrup. The first three chapters share the Nearing’s extensive historical research, first examining the history of the place of sugar in western culture, then sharing early the accounts of Native American sugaring, followed by tracing the evolution of maple sugar and syrup making among colonists and early settlers.

Thinking about the actual crafting of this book, I have always been impressed with the depth and breadth of the effort the Nearings went to in searching for and finding a wide range of historical accounts of maple sugaring. Although both the Nearings were systematic and scholarly in their approach to writing and even life in general, neither of them were historians in any formal sense. Yet, they wisely had a great concern for getting as close as possible to the primary sources of a particular historic account. With that they were careful to always share a reference and citation to tell the reader exactly what was stated and from where the statement came.

Although both the Nearing’s names were listed as authors, the research and writing were primarily completed by Helen, who did the majority of the writing at their Vermont home in the winter of 1946-47. However, Helen later shared “… in the end we didn’t know who had written which. Although all the erudite parts were his, and the simplistic parts were mine. But still it was a mixed, it was a mixed book. We wrote it that way together.”

With her usual humility and deference to Scott, Helen later said, “we wrote The Maple Sugar Book to learn, not to show how much we know,” and, “. . . we had three things in mind when we set ourselves to write this book. The first was to describe in detail the process of maple sugaring. The second was to present some interesting aspects of maple history. The third was to relate our experiment in homesteading and making a living from maple to the larger problem faced by so many people nowadays, how should one live?” The couple collected historical material and practical advice for the book over 6 or 7 years and when they began they were surprised to discover that no one had really written such a book before them.

Helen was encouraged by their neighbor, famous author Pearl S. Buck, to use an autobiographical approach and write about the Nearing’s firsthand experiences with maple sugaring. According to Nearing historian Greg Joly, with completion of a draft manuscript in 1947, the Nearing’s literary agent shared the book with a number of notable publishing houses, to no avail. Eventually the manuscript made its way to the hands of an editorial intern at John Day Company who in turn brought it to the attention of Richard J. Walsh, President of John Day Company, who also happened to be the husband of Pearl Buck, where the book finally found a home.

The book was initially published by John Day Company of New York in hard cover with a dust jacket and was made available for purchase on March 1, 1950, with 2500 copies printed. Released during the sugaring season, the publisher took advantage of that timing and even had a maple syrup themed book release party in New York City, featuring sugar on snow prepared for the guests by Helen and Scott Nearing, complete with donuts, pickles, and coffee. The publishers said the sugar on snow party was the first of its kind in the city. George Stufflebeam, the President of the Vermont Maple Sugar Maker’s Association at that time described the book as “the best treatise ever written on the maple industry.”

Dutiful to the expectations of their publishers, Helen and Scott made numerous speaking and promotional appearances to help sell the book, but surprisingly, in the initial year, John Day Company was able to sell only 2000 of the 2500 copies. After the initial printing by John Day Company, the rights to the book reverted to the Nearings and they subsequently printed four hard cover runs of the book under their own Social Sciences Institute label in the years 1950, 1958, 1968, 1970. Later, in 1970, the book was picked up and reprinted by Schocken Books in paperback and hardcover. Finally, in 2000 Chelsea Green Publishing of White River Junction, Vermont, in conjunction with the Nearing’s Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, published a commemorative 50^th anniversary edition, complete with a new forward and excellent epilogue by Nearing historian Greg Joly.

 

Sources:

Nearing, Helen and Scott, The maple sugar book, being a plain, practical account of the art of sugaring designed to promote an acquaintance with the ancient as well as the modern practise, together with remarks on pioneering as a way of living in the twentieth century, 1950, John Day Company: New York.

Nearing, Helen and Scott,  Living the good life : being a plain practical account of a twenty year project in a self-subsistent homestead in Vermont: together with remarks on how to live sanely & simply in a troubled world, 1954, Social Sciences Institute: Harborside, ME.

Nearing, Helen, The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing, 1974, Dutton-Sunrise, Inc.: New York.

Joly, Greg, “Epilogue” to the 50th Anniversary Edition of The Maple Sugar Book, 2000, Chelsea Green Publishing: White River Junction, VT.

Killinger, Margaret O., The Good Life of Helen K. Nearing, 2007, University of Vermont Press: Burlington, VT.

Gilman, William, “The Old Sugar House Goes Modern,” Popular Mechanics, February  1950: 137-141.

“Indians Made ‘Sweet Salt’, Too, Sugar Makers Are Told: Mrs. nearing Speaks at Dinner in Barre,” Burlington Free Press, Feb 9, 1950: 20.

“Sugaring Off Party in New York Introduces Maple Book: Nearings of Jamaica Make Sugar on Snow for Visiting Editors,” Burlington Free Press, Feb 27, 1950: 14.

Transcript from videotaped interview of Helen Nearing by Betty and Don Lockhart in 1988 at Helen’s home in Maine.