Category: Tubing and pipelines

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

By Matthew M. Thomas

Book and dust jacket cover from the first printing by John Day Company in 1950. Collections of the author.

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.

Helen Nearing running the evaporator. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.

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.

Nearing’s first sugar house at Forest Farms. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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.

Nearings’ metal pipeline for gathering and moving sap to the sugar house. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.

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.

Scott Nearing screwing on a pail for a dump station along the metal sap pipeline. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.

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.

Helen Nearing preparing packaging for mail orders of The Maple Sugar Book in their Forest Farms home. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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.

List of maple products available for purchase from Nearings’ Forest Farms. Collections of the author.

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.

Helen Nearing checking the progress of the syrup and looking for aproning. Photo from article in February 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics.

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 18th and 19th 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.

Helen Nearing reading from The Maple Sugar Book at a presentation to the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association annual dinner in 1950. Source – Burlington Free Press, February 9, 1950.

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.”

Image of he Nearings’ old and new sugar houses alongside sap collection tanks. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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 Nearing chatting with guests at the New York City sugar on snow book release party in March 1950. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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.

Scott Nearing preparing the maple syrup for the sugar on snow book release party in New York City. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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.”

Helen Nearing fueling the wood fired evaporator at their Forest Farms sugar house. Photo from The Good Life Album of Helen and Scott Nearing (1974).

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 50th 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.

New Publication on the History of Plastic Tubing – From Pails to Pipelines

I am pleased to share a copy of From Pails to Pipelines: The Origins and Early Adoption of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry, an article I wrote that was published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue (Vol. 89, No. 1) of the journal Vermont History.

Click on the image above to download a PDF copy of the article.

This article begins by tracing the experiments and technology that went into the development of various methods of pipelines and tubing systems for moving maple sap from trees to boiling areas in the sugarbush. The majority of the article focuses on the efforts of three men who were working simultaneously during the 1950s to make a plastic tubing system for sap gathering a reality. These men were George Breen of Jamaica, Vermont; Nelson Griggs of Montpelier, Vermont; and Robert Lamb of Liverpool, New York.

Because space for images and photographs in the published article was limited, I was only able to include a few photographs of Breen, Griggs, and Lamb. With this website, I am happy to share a few more images that accompany the article and better illustrate their efforts, experimental designs, and the resulting commercial products of these creative men.

George Breen

George Breen was a sugarmaker from Jamaica, Vermont who decided that there must be a better way to gather sap than laboriously hauling pails of sap through the snow. This led him in 1953 to begin to experiment with flexible plastic tubing to use gravity and the natural pressure in trees to move sap from the tree to a collection point. In time, Breen’s experiments caught the attention of the 3M Corporation and together they created, patented, and marketed  the Mapleflo sap gathering system. Here are a few photos of Breen at work in his sugarbush working with his early tubing design.

George Breen holding an example of his experimental spout and tubing in his Jamaica, VT sugarbush. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
George Breen installing spout and tubing in his Jamaica, VT sugarbush, circa 1956. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
George Breen inserting experimental tubing spout at taphole. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
Breen’s Jamaica, VT sugarhouse with tubing line running in from the sugarbush, circa 1956. Image Credit: University of Vermont Special Collections – Malvine Cole Papers.
Late 1950s Cover of 3M’s Mapleflo plastic tubing system, the patented commercial result of George Breen’s tubing experiments and invention. Image credit: collections of the author.
Late 1950s diagram and illustration of 3M’s Mapleflo plastic tubing system, the patented commercial tubing system based on the experiments of George Breen. Image credit: collections of the author.

 

Nelson Griggs

Nelson Griggs was an engineer with an interest in maple sugaring and an idea that plastic tubing might be a viable alternative and improved method of gathering maple sap in the sugarbush. In 1955, while working as a engineering consultant with the Bureau of Industrial Research at Norwich University, in Northfield, Vermont, Griggs partnered with the University of Vermont’s maple research team to put his flexible plastic tubing ideas to the test in the sugarbush of the Proctor Maple Research Farm. The following are some photos related to that research.

Nelson Griggs installing experimental plastic tubing at Proctor Maple Research Farm in 1955. Image credit: 1956 issue of Vermont Life magazine.
Nelson Griggs, center in striped sweater, with members of the Proctor Maple Research Farm research crew in the spring of 1955. Probable names of men in the photo include, University of Vermont (UVM) Professor, Dr. Fred Taylor on the far left, second from left UVM Extension Forester Ray Foulds, third from left UVM Professor, Dr. James Marvin. Image credit: UVM Special Collections – UVM Maple Research Collection.
Examples of recently discovered original Griggs spouts and and tubing assemblage used in 1955 experiments and preserved in the University of Vermont Special Collections. Photo by author.
Griggs experimental spout in use with plastic insert in taphole central metal connector, and flexible plastic tubing at other end. Image credit:  Marvin and Green February 1959 article in UVM Agriculture Experiment Station Bulletin 611.

 

Robert Lamb

Bob Lamb was in the chainsaw and boat motor sales and repair business in the Syracuse, New York region, mostly working with the logging and marine industry when in 1955 he was asked by a sales contact in forestry business if he could help come up with an idea for moving maple sap using tubing. Lamb put his creative mind to work and developed and marketed his Lamb Sap Gathering System, later named the Naturalflow Tubing System. The following are images related to the early years of Bob Lamb’s tubing design.

International Maple Museum Centre display of early experimental spouts, fittings, and tubing, designed and tested by Bob Lamb. Photo by author.
Bob Lamb demonstrating the use of a battery powered, backpack mounted drill. Image credit: 1963 Lamb Naturalflow Tubing System catalog, collections of author.
Sales brochure for Lamb Sap Gathering System from 1958, the first year Lamb tubing was commercially available. Collections of author.
Image of the Lamb Tubing System’s early installation method as a ground line with long drop lines. Image credit: 1963 Lamb Naturalflow Tubing System catalog, collections of author.
Display in the International Maple Museum Centre created by Mike Girard showing the spouts, fittings, and tubing components and arrangement of the early commercial version of Lamb’s Naturalflow Tubing System. Photo by author.

 

Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry

The Vermont Historical Society’s journal Vermont History recently published an article I wrote on the origins of plastic tubing for making maple syrup. Specifically titled, “From Pails to Pipelines: The Origins and Early Adoption of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry,” the article examines the evolution of pipeline and tubing technology for gathering and moving maple sap with special attention to the relationship and interplay of the three men who carried plastic tubing from idea and experiment to commercial reality. The article appears in Volume 89, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2021 and is sent to all members of the Vermont Historical Society.

Unfortunately, since this is the current issue of the Vermont History and is hot off the presses, I am not permitted to share an electronic copy of the article for 6 months. But anyone can join the Vermont Historical Society and get the paper journal mailed to their door as well as online access to all their current and past journals (including this issue), all the while supporting the preservation and sharing of Vermont history.

This fall I will post a PDF copy of this article on this blog, so check back in September to get a copy.

 

 

A History of the Gooseneck: The Brower Sap Piping System and the Cary Maple Sugar Company

The text from the following article was originally published in October 2005 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest – Written by Matthew M. Thomas

The initial application of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the 1950s was indisputably one of the most significant technological developments of the maple industry in the twentieth century.  However, the first viable tubing system was introduced over forty years earlier as a gravity drawn system made completely of metal.  Invented in the shadows of the Adirondack Mountains near Mayfield, New York, by William C. Brower, Jr., the system carried sap directly from the tree to the sugarhouse through an interconnected series of specialized taps, tubes and connectors.  Formally known as the Brower Sap Piping System, the pipeline was popularly referred to as the Gooseneck system because one of the key segments of the pipeline resembled the curved neck of a goose.

Brower Sap Piping System installed in an early 20th century sugarbush.

Born in Mayfield, New York in 1874, Brower was the consummate Yankee tinkerer and inventor.  As a machinist, mechanic, and jack of all trades, his education did not come from the classroom, but rather, from trying to solve and improve on the problems and dilemmas he and his neighbors faced every day.  Brower was also a sugarmaker, making him well aware of the difficulties of tapping and gathering sap with buckets and teams of horses or oxen in deep snow on and on steep slopes.

Drawing of components from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).

After coming up with the idea of using the natural gravity of the mountains to eliminate the laborious task of hand gathering sap, it took Brower nearly three years of trial and error to perfect the system.  The initial patent application occurred in December 1914.  A year and a half later in June 1916, the United States Patent Office awarded Brower patent number 1,186,741 for his “Sap-Collecting System”.  Likewise, an identical application by Brower was awarded a Canadian patent in August of 1917.

Drawing of layout from William J. Brower’s 1916 Sap Piping System patent (US1,186,471).

In order to support the weight of the folded sheet metal tubing and the sap flowing through it, the Gooseneck pipeline was suspended by small hooks on a network of wires strung through the sugarbush supported by posts and trees.  The wire used was usually a heavy gauge fence wire or reused telegraph wire.  The labor required for set up at the beginning of the season was greater than that of traditional gathering systems using metal spouts, pails and covers; but this cost was easily made up with a reduction in labor for gathering as well as the elimination of sap lost by overflowing buckets that were difficult to tend to in deep snow and on steep slopes.

The pipeline quickly caught the attention of many sugarmaker’s in the region; however Brower continued to manufacture the tubing and spiles out of his small workshop, limiting his ability to mass produce the system.  According to his grandson, Brower was a man more interested and skilled in working with his hands than in promoting and selling his invention.

Following completion of the pipeline design in 1914, Brower traveled from his Mayfield home to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to try and interest George C. Cary of the Cary Maple Sugar Company in using the pipeline in the large sugarbush on Cary’s 4,000 acre farm.  Initially, Cary was not interested, but Brower persisted, finally convincing Cary to try the system on 1500 trees during the 1915 maple season.  As president of what was then, the world’s largest maple sugar business, and as owner of one of Vermont’s largest sugarbushes, Cary had the wealth, liberty, and interest in experimenting with more efficient and cost effective methods and equipment.  After only one season of use, Cary was sold, placing an order for enough tubing to connect 9000 more trees.  Ultimately Cary would have 15,000 trees on the pipeline at his North Danville sugarbush.

Image of the cover of sales booklet for Brower’s Sap Piping System offer by the Cary Maple Sugar Company out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Continued satisfaction with the system led the Cary Maple Sugar Company to form a partnership with Brower in 1918, with the company providing the facilities and financing to expand production and sale of the pipeline.  Although his family stayed in New York, Brower temporarily relocated to St. Johnsbury to direct production in this new venture.

According to a promotional brochure, during the first year of production in St. Johnsbury, sales more than doubled and orders were coming in faster than they were able to manufacture the pipeline.  The brochure goes on to say that many producers tried a small amount of the tubing at first but were so satisfied that they followed-up with much larger orders.  Owners of larger sugarbushes were especially interested in the system.  In one instance an estimated 30,000 feet of pipeline was used in one 1,700 tap sugarbush. With mass production in full swing, the 1920 prices for the system ranged from thirty-five to forty-two dollars for one thousand feet of half inch to one inch diameter pipeline, and seven dollars per one hundred for both spouts and Goosenecks.  The half inch and one inch diameter pipeline sections came in three foot lengths with a manufacturer’ estimated costs of sixty to seventy cents per tree.

1921 Vermont newspaper advertisement for Brower Sap Piping manufactured out of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

An impressive endorsement of the quality of maple sugar one could make using the pipeline came from M.J. Corliss, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Vermont Sugarmaker’s Association.  At the annual meeting of the Association in 1926, Corliss noted that he had “been taking careful note and for the last two or three years it is a fact that the men who have carried off most of the blue ribbons or first prizes are the men who have used the piping system”.  One of the greatest strengths of the pipeline was the elimination of debris and the near immediate delivery of clean, fresh sap, which was especially important in the 1920s and 1930s when and our understanding of bacterial growth in sap and the tap holes was in its infancy and sap gathering was traditionally done with out the aid of engines and machines.

With the Cary Company’s assistance and wide reaching influence, the pipeline began to make a dent in the equipment market. While, the pipeline system never became as popular as tubing has today, it was added to the sap gathering process in a number of maple operations.  A 1925 study of 457 maple producing farms in Vermont found that 18, or roughly four percent, were using the pipeline on some of their trees.  In those 18 sugarbushes, an average of 28 percent of the trees were tapped with the pipeline, ranging from as few as 8 percent to as many as 75 percent of the trees.  In that same year, pipeline users averaged 400 taps on tubing and had been gathering sap with the system for an average of 4 years.  This study also found the average estimated value of the pipeline to be $268 or 67 cents per tap, which was consistent with the price estimate promoted by the Cary Company.

It is not clear when the Cary Maple Sugar Company discontinued its production of the pipeline; however, it may have been as early as the mid-1920.  By the late 1930s, it appears that the Gooseneck system had fallen out of favor and was no longer used by many maple producers.  George Cary himself went bankrupt and died in 1931, leading to the reorganization of the company and the sale of his farm and sugarbush.  With the end of production of the pipeline in St. Johnsbury, William Brower returned to his family in New York, where he lived until his death in 1940.

The pipeline was used primarily in the northeastern states of Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire; however, the system also made it as far west as Wisconsin.  Evidence of its use was recently found in the northern part of the state on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.  Archaeologists discovered spiles, Gooseneck connectors, rolls of wire, and thousands of sections of pipe from the Brower system at the former location of a late 1920s to early 1930s sugarhouse.

Like plastic tubing, it was important to not have any sag in the system where sap could collect in low spots and get sour.  Some pipeline users reported that freezing was sometimes a problem, but that the metal warmed easily when the sun came out, quickly thawing the frozen sap in the pipeline.  It was sometimes noted that at the end of the season sap gathered with the system was slightly sour and often had to be thrown away.  Fallen limbs, ice, and deer occasionally disconnected sections of the pipeline, and the contraction of the metal in very cold conditions could result in the separation of the inserted pipe ends.  Some maple producers stopped using the system because it was made from a kind of sheet metal known as Tern Plate, which was a combination of tin and lead.  As one maple bulletin described it in 1949, “the use of such metal was strongly discouraged by State and Federal authorities for the processing of any food”.  In spite of these drawbacks, the benefits at the time were clear. For sugarmakers with large, steep, and hard to get to sugarbushes who kept their equipment clean and processed their sap quickly, the Gooseneck system was an excellent innovation.  While the system added more work at the beginning and end of the maple season with longer set up times and additional cleaning, it eliminated the laborious task of gathering sap once or twice a day.

Improvements in sap gathering methods have long since replaced the Gooseneck system, but the pipeline has not completely faded into memory.  On the Lent family farm near Mayfield, New York, the pipeline continues to be used on a few hundred taps to gather and transport sap from their mountainside sugarbush.  It is no coincidence that the family still uses the system or that their sugarbush is near Mayfield, the community where Brower first invented the pipeline.  In fact, the Lent family has used the pipeline for over 80 years with their farm and sugarbush located next door to Brower’s former property. Many years after his death, the Lent family purchased William Brower’s former home and the workshop where the pipeline was invented.  Today, a New York State historic marker points out the location of the workshop alongside Mountain Road (Highway 123) northeast of Mayfield.

The Gooseneck metal sap pipeline in use during the 2005 sugaring season in the Lent Family sugarbush, Mayfield, New York. Photo by Matthew M. Thomas

According to Lent family history, their ancestor, Edward L. Lent, worked with his neighbor Brower in the early 1900s to develop and improve the pipeline system, using the Lent sugarbush as a test site.  Over the years the Lent family tried other methods of sap collection like metal pails, plastic bags, and plastic tubing, but has always kept a portion of their sugarbush on the Gooseneck system.  At their peak in the 1980s, the Lent’s gathered sap with the pipeline from approximately 2500 taps.  More recently, they have discontinued commercial production and scaled back their operation to a few hundred taps.  The spring of 2004 was one of the first years that they did not tap, out of respect for the terminal illness and recent passing of the family patriarch, Edward W. Lent, grandson of Edward L. Lent.  The 2005 season saw a return to the Lent family installation of the Gooseneck system.

As the preferred method of sap gathering in the modern sugarbush, plastic tubing has become commonplace over the last forty years.  However, the basic idea, structure, and terminology of a sap gathering pipeline were established with the Gooseneck pipeline, setting the stage for the experiments with plastic tubing pipelines in the mid-1950s.  In fact, one could argue that Brower would have probably chosen plastic rather than English Tin had flexible plastic PVC tubing been invented and available in the early 20th Century.  In a flexible form, PVC tubing wasn’t available for non-military use until after World War II.  It wasn’t until it became commercially available in the 1950s when pioneers like Nelson Griggs, George Breen, and Bob Lamb began to explore its application for gathering maple sap.

 

A Pair of Recent Maple History Presentations

In January 2020 I had the honor of being invited to the Vermont Maple Conference to make a couple of presentations on historical research I had conducted in the last few years. One presentation was a condensed version of the story of George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company, which is the topic of my book Maple King: The Making of a Maple Syrup Empire. The second presentation was on new research I have completed for an article currently in review for publication in the journal Vermont History. This research traces the  early origins and development of the use of plastic tubing for gathering maple sap in the maple syrup industry.

University of Vermont Extension Maple Specialist Mark Isselhardt arranged to have the audio from both presentations recorded in association with the presentation slides and posted these on the UVM Extension Maple Website. You can click on the following presentation titles or the title slides here to link to the full audio/slide show for each one. Enjoy!

Presentation titled  – Vermont’s Maple King: The History of George C. Cary and the Cary Maple Sugar Company  – 42 minutes in length

 

Presentation titled History of the Origins and Development of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Syrup Industry – 50 minutes in length

 

 

The Gooseneck Metal Pipeline: Wisconsin’s First Tubing System?

This article originally appeared in a 2004 edition of the Wisconsin Maple News.

Plastic tubing and vacuum pumping continue to grow in popularity in Wisconsin sugarbushes with a few more miles added every year.  But long before the invention of plastic tubing in the late 1950s, early twentieth century Yankee farmers wanting to reduce the labor of gathering sap invented a metal gravity-fed pipeline system that carried sap directly from the tree to the sugarhouse.  This metal pipeline system consisted of three sizes of tubing, each constructed from long narrow sheets of English tin folded and crimped at the top and slightly tapered at the end to be inserted tightly into another piece of tubing.  The system also included spiles made from conical sheets of tin with a metal tube soldered to the bottom like a drop line.  The spile was either inserted directly into openings on the top of pipeline or into connecting pieces that fit into the pipeline.  This connection from the spile to the tubing was made by a shorter, tapered piece of tubing with a curve at the narrow end, similar in appearance to the neck of a goose.  In fact, it was this piece that gave this system its common name of “gooseneck system”.  The weight of the rigid metal pipeline was supported by heavy gauge wire strung through the woods, with a hook at one end of each piece of tubing to hang the tubing on the support wires.

The gooseneck system in use in a Vermont sugarbush circa 1930. Source: Vermont Maple Sugar and Syrup, Bulletin 38.

The gooseneck system was patented in 1916 near the village of Mayfield, New York along the southern margins of Adirondack State Park by William H. Brower, Jr.  Brower, who was described by his grandson as a mechanic and tinkerer, developed the system with his neighbor and syrup maker, Edward L. Lent.  Today, the workshop where it was invented still stands on land owned by the Lent family and is noted by a roadside historic marker.  According to Lent family history, Brower and Lent later sold the patent to one of the larger Vermont maple syrup equipment makers.  Amazingly, through four generations of syrup making, the Lent family has never stopped using the gooseneck system.  At one time, the Lent family’s mountainside sugarbush was using as many as 2500 taps on the system and boiling on a 3 foot by 16 foot wood fired evaporator. In recent year the family has reduced their tapping to around 300 to 400 taps and downsized to a 2 foot by 10 foot evaporator.  According to the Lent family, the metal pipeline will occasionally freeze during cold spells, but thaws out quickly on south and east facing hillside of the their sugarbush.  At the end of the season, the network of support wire is left strung through the sugarbush but the tubing is taken down.  The pipeline sections are washed and boiled in the evaporator in the last sap of the year then set upright to dry, coating them with a thin layer of sugary sap that prevents rust from developing in the off season.

The late Edward Lent, grandson of Edward L. Lent, tapping trees for gooseneck system in Lent family sugarbush in March 2002.

The gooseneck system was sporadically used during the 1920s and 1930s in the more hilly and mountainous sugarbushes of northeastern United States.  Until recently, this technology was not known to have made it as far west as Wisconsin.  However, in 2003, cultural resource management staff of the USDA Forest Service in Wisconsin discovered the long abandoned remains of a maple sugaring operation in the hills of southwestern Ashland County.  The remains of this former sugarhouse and storage building included over one thousand, four-foot long sections of the tubing system, as well as the gooseneck connecting pieces, coils of suspension wire and other debris.  Today the site appears as a series of building foundations in an overgrown clearing at the base of a maple covered ridge, a perfect location of the gravity fed pipeline system.

A fallen over stack of thousands of sections of metal pipeline at the remains of an abandoned sugarbush on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, southern Ashland County, Wisconsin.

Based on the age of the other artifacts at the site, including three sizes of metal syrup tins, the use of this sugarbush roughly dates to between 1915 and 1930.  The U.S. Forest Service acquired the land in 1934, shortly after it had been logged and most of the large mature maple trees removed.  As the only known example of the use of the gooseneck system in Wisconsin, the Forest Service has recognized its historical importance and is protecting the site as part of planned forest management activities. In addition, research into the history of the site and use of the pipeline continues.

Matthew Thomas. “The Gooseneck Metal Pipeline: Wisconsin’s First Tubing System?” Wisconsin Maple News, 2004, volume 20, number 1, page 12.

 

Ongoing Research – The Origins of Plastic Tubing in the Maple Industry

A current project I am researching involves an examination of the history of the early years of the use of flexible plastic tubing for the gathering and movement of maple sap. This research looks at the evolution of earlier pipeline systems leading up to the first experiments and prototype taps, tubing and fittings before diving into the more specific events leading up to the patents and introduction of marketable products of the 1950s and early 1960s. A focus of the research and story is the role and interaction of the three primary inventors and promoters of early tubing – George Breen, Nelson Griggs, and Bob Lamb.

From a historical point of view, as something that primarily take place in the 1950s, the origins and evolution of plastic tubing is a fairly recent story to tell; however, enough time has passed that none of the key individuals are still living. Despite that fact, as this research has progressed I have been lucky enough to interview various family members of all three of these men, as well as other knowledgeable folks in the maple world with their own connections, stories, and information to share. Nevertheless, I am still looking for a little more detail and corroborating information, most notably related to Bob and Florence Lamb’s back story and their initial introduction and engagement with the maple industry and developing their version of plastic tubing, spouts and fittings.

I am sure there are many individuals out there in the maple world that have had their own interactions with these men and women over the years, not to mention their own experiences with early adoption of plastic tubing. If you are one of these folks and would like to share anything that you think might is relevant, informative, or just plain helpful, I’d love to hear from you. Please drop me a note at maplesyruphistory@gmail.com or use the comment form on this website.