Neatness and Dispatch: A.J. Cook’s 1887 Guidebook “Maple Sugar and the Sugar-Bush”

By Matthew M. Thomas

 

Cover page of Cook’s influential “Maple Sugar and the Sugar-House” published in 1887.

A.J. Cook’s Maple Sugar and the Sugar-Bush, the oldest stand-alone publication dedicated to providing advice and guidance in making maple sugar and syrup, was first published in 1887. The 44-page illustrated booklet was written by Professor Albert John Cook of the Michigan Agricultural College (today known as Michigan State University) at the behest of the booklet’s publisher, A.I. Root. Although Cook had been making maple sugar his entire life, he was better known at the time as a naturalist, entomologist, and expert on the business of keeping bees and making honey.  You can download and read a copy of Cook’s booklet at this link.

Cook was born and grew up on his family’s farm near Owosso, Michigan. He attended college at the Michigan Agricultural College earning a Bachelor’s of Science degree in 1862, a Master’s of Science in 1865, and a Doctorate in Science in 1905. In 1867, he was appointed to the position of mathematics instructor at the Michigan Agricultural College before advancing to a position of professor of zoology and entomology in 1869. He also served as curator of the college’s museum and established the agricultural college’s extensive insect collection.

Portrait of Albert John Cook in the 1880s.

As an adult, Cook owned and maintained his own farm and sugarbush adjacent to the farms of his brothers Seth R. Cook and Ezekiel J. Cook  which were along the banks of the Maple River in Shiawassee County, Michigan. Cook was a prolific author, and his breadth of knowledge as a naturalist and scientist along with his practical experience as a farmer positioned him well as a frequent contributor to a number of rural newspapers. It was common to see articles on new and improved methods of farming and rural living in such publications as the New York Tribune, the Rural New Yorker, Philadelphia Press, New England Homestead, and Country Gentleman. Some might even describe his association with these papers as that of a correspondent or editor.

In addition to his articles and letters of advice, he was the author of the popular Manual of Apiary in 1876, the first textbook on American beekeeping that was republished through ten editions over the following decade. He also published Birds of Michigan in 1893 and California Citrus Culture in 1913.

Cook recognized that despite the great interest in and economic importance of maple sugaring, there was next to nothing written about it to guide and assist the sugarmaker to make the best quality sugar and syrup possible. He acknowledges in the introduction to the booklet that, prior to being asked by publisher Root, he had no plans to write a comprehensive guide to maple sugaring, even though Professor Cook gave advice and direction on maple sugar making as early as 1884 in a newspaper column that appeared in a number of papers in northeastern US states. Interestingly, it wasn’t until nearly 20 years later with the U.S.D.A. publication of The Maple Sugar Industry by William F. Fox and William F. Hubbard in 1905, that another comparable guide book was published. For more information on the history of maple syrup manuals, see my earlier post.

The first edition of Maple Sugar and the Sugar-Bush was released in the spring of 1887. Subsequent re-printings by the publisher made the addition of three appendices, one written by A.J. Cook, one by George E. Clark, and one by the publisher A.I. Root. The booklet continued to be printed and sold by publisher Root well into the early 1900s. A.I. Root of Medina, Ohio, the booklet’s publisher, was a successful bee keeper who ran a prominent business in northern Ohio for all things related to keeping bees. Root’s bee-business activities included publishing, where he put out a wide number of booklets on bee keeping and successful farming as well as a monthly magazine called Gleanings in Bee Culture that continues to this day. In addition to an extensive business in bee-keeping supplies, Root was a maple syrup buyer and packer in his corner of Ohio south of Cleveland.

Page from Cook’s “Maple Sugar and the Sugar-Bush” illustrating the exterior and floor plan of his model sugar house.

As a naturalist and professor of entomology, it is expected that Cook’s guide book contains a substantial section on the current understanding at that time of the ecology and physiology of the maple tree as well as a discussion of the various insect pests that plague the maple species. When the text moves to the actual discussion of the sugarbush ,Cook leads off with the motto, “neatness and dispatch,” which sums up his overall advice for the secret to making money from the best possible maple sugar and syrup. He proceeds to describe his own sugarhouse and boiling set up, touting the overwhelming superiority and efficiency of a modern evaporator over a kettle or flat pan. In the 1870s, Professor Cook was an early user and proponent of the evaporator designed and patented by D.M. Cook of Marshfield, Ohio, who was of no relation. However, in time he began to see limits in the Cook design and in the mid-1880s, shifted to the improved design of the Champion Evaporator from G.H. Grimm of Hudson, Ohio.

Cook had the benefit of personal experience from a lifetime of making maple products on his father’s farm and then his own. Cook himself witnessed the evolution of sugaring firsthand in his family’s operation, going from wood pails, wood spiles, and open-air kettles, to flat pans on a stone arch in a crude log shelter to covered metal pails, metal spouts and an efficient metal evaporator in a wood frame sugarhouse.

At the time of writing the booklet, Cook was tapping 600 trees and by 1890 had grown to tapping 800 trees in his sugarbush. Cook advocated putting in one spout per tree early in the season and adding a second spout to each tree later in the season. He used only metal pails with wood covers and advised, where possible for sugarmakers to frequently rinse the pails with water during the course of the season. He was a huge proponent of maintaining the cleanest and freshest equipment possible with periodic washing of tools throughout the season, and to collect and boil the sap as quickly as possible. He also advocated for the need to maintain a tight and neat sugarhouse. As he wrote, “it is filth – sour sap, not later sap, that makes inferior syrup,” showing his early understanding of the real nature and sour of off flavors and poor-quality syrup.

Cook’s booklet goes on to share a plethora of practical explanation and advice about operation of the evaporator; wood storage and selection; sap collection, gathering, and storage, and tree tapping. In all areas of sugaring, he addresses the motto from the beginning, pointing out the reasons and methods for choosing modern metal tools and how to keep the equipment and resulting sap as clean as possible. He even advised those who were tapping a smaller number of trees to just busy themselves with making syrup for their griddle cakes and not bother taking the syrup down further to maple sugar. Cook understood that maple sugar was never going to compete with cane sugar and corn syrup as sweeteners and that the manufacturers of maple products needed to embrace the notion that they were making and selling a luxury product. In fact, instead of making sugar, Cook boiled most of his sap into syrup which he canned in metal tins and glazed ceramic jugs. He made no mention of bottling syrup in glass. He noted that he sold his syrup at $1.25 a gallon, with the equivalent volume of sugar getting 70 to 80 cents or at most $1.00 despite the additional labor and costs associated with boiling from syrup to sugar. Even though Cook was not a proponent of making maple sugar with the sap he gathered, he still provided a detailed description of the process of making what he called barrel sugar, cake sugar, and stirred sugar.

There is no indication Cook was influenced or sponsored by any particular equipment manufacturer when he chose to recommend items by name and cost. Instead, because this was an independent publication, outside his position with the State Agricultural College, he was free to share his own personal opinions and experiences, free of criticism of favoritism.

Portrait of A.J. Cook during his time as California Commissioner of Horticulture.

In 1893 Cook took on a new position as professor of biology at Pomona College in Claremont, California, a suburb of Los Angeles: leaving Michigan and his farm and sugarbush in the hands of his son, Albert Baldwin Cook. Cook later left his position at Pomona College in 1911 and moved to Sacramento when he accepted an appointment as Commissioner of Horticulture for the State of California. He continued in that role until failing health forced him to resign in 1915 and he returned to Michigan. Cook’s health never improved, and he died in Owosso, Michigan in 1916 at age 74.

 

Special thanks to Karl Zander for providing a  digital copy of Cook’s booklet in PDF format to be shared with readers.

Canada Sap Syrup from Minnesota? – The Story of the St. Paul Syrup Refining Company

You can read my latest maple history contribution to the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers’ Association December 2022 newsletter at this link or by clicking on the image below.

This contribution examines the history and details surrounding the formation and operation of the St. Paul Syrup Refining Company, a syrup blending company that operated in St. Paul Minnesota from the 1880s to the 1920s under the brand name of Canada Sap Maple Syrup. Of course, one is left to wonder how much, if any, pure maple syrup went into their blended syrups.

Following on the model of their competitor and St. Paul neighbor, Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup, the St. Paul Syrup Refining Company utilized flashy and colorful marketing and interesting packing to sell blended syrup to consumers throughout the western United States and from the maple syrup producing regions.

 

 

The Origins of the Maple Syrup Bottle with the Odd Little Handle

By Matthew M. Thomas

Modern example of the oval syrup flask with the little round handle.

When thinking of iconic symbols or popular images related to the maple syrup industry, one that quickly comes to mind is the glass flask shaped syrup bottle with the little round handle on the neck. Use of this bottle is unique to the maple industry and is instantly associated with pure maple syrup. About ten years ago a blog post claimed that the appearance or continued presence of the small handle on the neck of this bottle was a hold-over or an artifact of past designs for syrup jugs. Such elements are something known as a skeuomorph, “a retained but no longer functional stylistic feature.” The same Brooklyn Brainery blog writer went on to say “that the handles are a remnant from when most jars were large earthenware containers. The handle’s useful when you’re carrying five pounds of liquid, but not so much when you can easily grab the whole bottle in the palm of your hand.”

Perhaps, a better explanation comes from Jean-François Lozier, a Curator at the Canadian Museum of History, who was quoted online in a Canadian Reader’s Digest article to say, “maple syrup companies weren’t so much retaining an old pattern of a jug as reinventing it and wanting to market their product as something nostalgic.” Lozier, went on to add, “they were tying in the image of maple syrup with their product and the image that people still had of those crocks in the 19th-century.”

Drawing for Brooks D. Fuerst’s 1951 design patent for the oval syrup flask (USD162147).

While it is true that the little handles on the bottles have the appearance of being something of a holdover or throwback design element that was intended to show a connection to bottles and jugs of the past, the fact is that we really do not know why the bottle was designed with a little handle. What we do know is who first designed and manufactured that bottle, and by what company and when the bottle was first used for selling maple syrup. Brooks D. Fuerst of Sylvania, Ohio, was awarded with the design patent (USD162147) for the bottle in February 1951, after applying for the patent in June of 1949.

Image of a young Brooks D. Fuerst.

Brooks Fuerst (1905-1998) was an experienced designer of glass bottles and jars for food and liquid packaging and worked extensively with the Owens-Illinois Glass Company and the Libbey Glass Company, both in Toledo, Ohio, a place that is sometimes called the Glass Capital of the World.

The design for the syrup flask with the little handle on the neck was given the uninspiring title of “jug or the like” and it should be noted that the shape of the small handle on the original design was not actually rounded, but was more angular with two sharp corners. Brooks Fuerst assigned the patent to the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, either through sale, contract, or as an employee of the company.

Early examples of Cary’s Maple Syrup in the 1951 Fuerst bottle. On the left a 8.5 ounce bottle and on the right a small 2.0 ounce sample size bottle.

The Fuerst flask was first used in 1950 by the Cary Maple Sugar Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 2-ounce, 8-ounce, and 24-ounce sizes. At that time, the Cary company used the flask to bottle two kinds of syrup. One was their Cary’s 100% Pure Maple Syrup, the other was their Highland Brand blended syrup, a mixture of cane and maple syrup.

Advertisement from a 1950 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine for Highland Syrup, featuring the Brooks D. Fuerst bottle.

Prior to the introduction of the Cary’s brand pure maple syrup in 1948, the Cary Maple Sugar Company had used the Highland brand for bottling pure maple syrup since 1919.  Highland brand  blended syrup continued in use to the mid-1960s and appears to have been discontinued after the Childs-Fred Fear Company sold the Cary’s brand to HCA-Doxsee Foods in 1966. The Cary’s brand of maple syrup continues to be sold to this day by B & G Foods.

Advertisement for Cary’s Maple Maker concentrated syrup – May 1953 Los Angeles Times.

The Cary Maple Sugar Company also used the 8-ounce Fuerst flask from 1953 to 1957 to sell their unique “Maple Maker” a highly concentrated maple syrup in which one ounce of concentrate mixed with water and refined white sugar would produce 16 ounces of maple flavored table syrup. This product was aimed at a cost-conscious buyer that wanted to enjoy “home-made” maple flavored syrup at a fraction of the cost of 100% pure maple syrup.

 

This was not the first design for a maple syrup bottle by a Fuerst. In fact, Brooks Fuerst’s older brother Edwin W. Fuerst (1903-1988) designed a similar bottle over 15 years earlier. It should be noted that,  then and to this day, design patents were protected for 14 years.

Image of Edwin W. Fuerst.

With Edwin W. Fuerst’s earlier design, the patent was applied for in December 1932 before obtaining former approval in February 1933. Like with the 1951 syrup flask, the 1933 design patent (USD89301) was assigned to the manufacturer, Owens-Illinois Glass Company. Also, like the 1951 design, the first maple syrup company to use the design was the Cary Maple Sugar Company, this time in 2, 8,  12, and 24-ounce sizes. Edwin Fuerst, like his younger brother, was an experienced commercial artist that lived in Toledo and worked closely with the Owens-Illinois and Libbey Glass companies. Like Brooks Fuerst, Edwin was awarded dozens of design patents for artistic glass containers as well as attractive cut glass tableware from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Drawing for Edwin W. Fuerst’s 1933 design patent for the round syrup flask (USD89301).

The design of Edwin Fuerst’s 1933 syrup bottle, was titled “design for a jug.” It had a rounder shape to the body than the 1951 bottle and also featured a  virtually identical, small, seemingly useless angled handle at the neck. The 1933 bottle featured a thick rectangular base that made it much heavier and more stable than the later more oval flask design. In contrast, the later 1951 flask features a series of short decorative vertical flutes or concave scallops near the base which were absent from the earlier bottle.

Advertisement for Cary Maple Sugar Company’s Highland Maple Sap Syrup featuring Edwin Fuerst’s round bottle – January 1937 Chicago Tribune.

It is not known for sure, but it appears that the Cary Company may have had exclusive rights to use both the 1933 and the 1951 designs during the beginning years of the manufacturing of these bottles. However, we do know that Quebec Maple Products, LTD out of Lennoxville, Quebec, also used this design as early as 1935 with their Old Colony brand syrup. Quebec Maple Products, LTD was owned by Robert Boright who had a close history with the Cary Company, first as the manager of their Quebec plant, then as the temporary company president following the death of George Cary in 1931.

Examples of Highland Maple Sap Syrup bottles. 12 ounce bottle on left and smaller 2..0 ounce sample size bottle on right.

In fact, considering that the 1933 design was in the works and initially submitted for a patent in 1932 during the period that Boright oversaw the Cary Company operations, it is possible that it was Boright’s idea and initiative to introduce the new bottle.

Ontario newspaper advertisements for Quebec Maple Products, LTD use of the Edwin Fuerst bottle. Old Colony advertisement on left from February 1935 The Windsor Star and Old Tyme Syrup on the right from October 1958 The Windsor Star.

When Boright left the Cary company and started his own Quebec Maple Products, LTD in 1933, he certainly had the inside scoop on the availability of the new design.  And as far as can be seen, Quebec Maple Products, LTD only used the 1933 bottle for sale of their syrup within Canada, so they likely would not have been competing with the Cary company in the US or violating exclusivity agreements or US patent laws. Quebec Maple Products LTD continued to use the 1933 round bottle design well into the 1960s with their Old Colony and Old Tyme Brand syrups.

Examples of two different containers of Little Brown Jug Syrup. The ceramic container from 1920s is on left and the 1930s glass design with the loop handle on the neck is on the right.

The 1933 Fuerst bottle curiously resembles another bottle introduced in the 1930s, that of Little Brown Jug syrup out of St. Louis, Missouri. When Little Brown Jug blended syrup was introduced in 1921 or 1922, it originally came in a ceramic container shaped like a thick round disc on its side with a large loop handle on the shoulder. That design (USD61415) was patented by Joseph Klein in 1922. Around 1934 the Little Brown Jug Products Company shifted to a brown glass bottle in a design that was similar to their earlier ceramic design, with the addition of some notable differences, which happened to make their glass jug very similar to the 1933 round jug of Fuerst, such as a round loop handle on the neck and a thick glass ring or ridge at the juncture of the neck and shoulder. Surprisingly, the glass version of the Little Brown Jug, which only appears in advertisements from 1934 onward, is embossed with the design patent number of their earlier, and different, ceramic jug. One would think the Little Brown Jug company would have also obtained a patent on their new, slightly modified, glass design, unless they were concerned with accusations of copying Fuerst and instead wanted to reply on the precedent of their earlier design patent. It is also possible that Fuerst did the design for the glass version of the Little Brown Jug, and a design patent was never applied for. So far, research has yet to uncover a patent specific to the 1930s design of the Little Brown Jug.

Interestingly, a check of the 1926 and the 1933 catalogs for the Owens- Illinois Glass Company shows the same reinforced ridge or ring at the neck was standard design element for loop handled bottles and jugs at that time.

Use of the 1951 Fuerst bottle by the maple industry in 1960s and 1970s was primarily limited to the large packing companies with national sales and shelf space in grocery chains. It was rarely offered for sale in the catalogs of maple equipment dealers. It wasn’t until the 1980s, with the growing availability and appreciation of specialty glass containers that the flask bottle became a popular option with individual maple producers. By the mid-1990s, the handle design evolved from an angular shape to its current rounded form, finalizing the shape we easily identify today as a symbol of real maple syrup.

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.

Large Scale Maple Syrup Production with the Horse Shoe Forestry Company

The unique story of the turn of the century maple syrup operation carried out by Abbot Augustus Low and his Horse Shoe Forestry Company in the forests of New York’s Adirondacks Mountains is near and dear to my heart and one I love to share. It also happens to be the focus of my latest contribution to the September 2022 edition of the Maple Syrup Digest (Vol. 61, no. 3). For those that may not be familiar with  the Maple Syrup Digest, it is the official quarterly publication of the North American Maple Syrup Council.  I even managed to snag the cover image of this issue of the Maple Syrup Digest, a first for me! You can read the article at this link or by clinking on the accompanying image.

Those of you looking for even more detail and dozens of maps and images related to the history of the Horse Shoe Forestry Company should check out my second book, A Sugarbush Like None Other: Adirondack Maple Syrup and the Horseshoe Forestry Company, available for purchase online at eBay.

 

 

The Origins of the Spelling of Maple Sirup With An “I”

By Matthew M. Thomas

Readers of vintage United States Department of Agriculture reports, bulletins, and manuals from the early 1900s to the 1970s, often notice and wonder why the word syrup in maple syrup is spelled as sirup with an I. Where did this version of the spelling come from, how long was it in use and why was it used in the first place? Was it merely a colloquial variation stemming from people writing spoken words down in ways that phonetically made sense?

1958 example of Sirup with an I, cover of Agricultural Handbook No. 134, titled, Maple Sirup Producers Manual.

What about how syrup is spelled in other languages as the source? We know the English language is made up of words from a variety of languages from Europe and borrows and modifies all sorts of “foreign” words. French is an important language to consider in this regard, especially since there is a great history of maple sugar and syrup making in French speaking Quebec. In French, the spelling is sirop with an O. That certainly is a contender for getting from sirop to sirup to syrup, with only progressive changes to the first vowel. Interestingly, the German spelling for syrup is sirup with an I, also right on the mark. Were immigrants and residents with French or German heritage the source of spelling sirup with an I?

How popular was spelling sirup with an I in early America? A search of newspaper archives shows sporadic use of spelling sirup with an I throughout the first half of the 1800s, increasing in use in the 1850s to the 1890s, although it was still used less often than syrup with a Y and even then, in most cases, sirup with an I was used in relation to sorghum or cane syrup and much less often in referring to maple syrup. So where did this formal use of sirup with an I come from?

Cover of Department of Agriculture Bureau of Chemistry Bulletin No,. 134, titled Maple-Sap Sirup from 1910.

What about the question of how long the United States Department of Agriculture had been using the spelling of sirup with an I? The Department of Agriculture was created in 1862 and in 1863 published its first Report of the Commissioner (the Agriculture Department was led by a Commissioner at that time, not yet a Secretary). That first annual report of the department included a section titled The Manufacture of Maple Sugar authored by C.T. Alvord, of Wilmington, Vermont. Alvord was not an employee of the federal government, but rather a lawyer, progressive farmer, and regular contributor to farming and agricultural journals of the time. In Alvord’s 1862 report one sees no use of syrup with a Y, but instead maple sirup with an I, as well as the term maple molasses. In analyzing federal agricultural census data, Alvord wrote,

“It will be noticed that the proportional increase in the quantity of maple molasses manufactured in 1860 over that of 1850 is much larger than that of maple sugar. I attribute this to the fact that many farmers are name making “maple sirup” instead of maple sugar. At present prices it is thought to be more profitable to make sirup than sugar.”

It is curious that in the first instance where Alvord used the words “maple sirup” in the agricultural department report, the term is presented in quotation marks, as if it is a new or unique spelling to be noted, but then then quotation marks are dropped in the rest of the report. Alvord’s use of sirup with an I in the government report is especially interesting, since in other articles he wrote on maple sugaring published in agricultural newspapers from just two years earlier, he always used the spelling of syrup with a Y.

Example of Sirup with an I, cover of the 1976 edition of USDA Agricultural Handbook No. 134, titled Maple Sirup Producers Manual.

Similarly, in 1905 when William F. Fox co-authored the Department of Agriculture Bureau of Forestry Bulletin No. 59 titled, The Maple Sugar Industry, the text of the report exclusively used maple sirup with an I. This is in contrast to Fox spelling syrup with a Y a few years earlier in 1898 in his overview of maple sugaring in the 3rd annual report of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests of the State of New York.

Who was responsible for the publishing of federal reports and manuals, and might that be the source of sirup with an I? The Government Printing Office (GPO), the agency responsible for the preparation and printing of official publications of the federal government came into being in 1861, one year before the Department of Agriculture. With the monumental task of being the federal government’s publishing house, it is safe to presume someone at the GPO was making editorial, style, and printing decisions from that point forward, including deciding to use sirup with an I.

1924 cover of Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin No. 1366, titled Production of Maple Sirup and Sugar,

According to the GPO, the first official GPO style manual was issued in 1894. In that manual under the heading of orthography, authors are instructed to follow Webster’s International Dictionary, which was an expanded version of the famous Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language first issued in 1806. With that direction from that era, a look at 1890 and 1900 editions of Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language show sirup with an I as the preferred spelling, and syrup with a Y as a secondary spelling. In fact in the 1890 and 1900 versions of Webster’s dictionary, syrup with a Y does not even have its own entry or cross reference to sirup with an I. Looking back further to earlier versions of Webster’s dictionaries, as far back as 1828, and we see that sirup with an I was identified as the preferred spelling over syrup with a Y.

Sirup with an I continued to be presented as the preferred spelling in Webster’s Dictionary through the 1950s, but by 1959 with the release of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, the primacy had flipped with syrup with a Y getting the main listing and sirup with an I becoming the secondary spelling and its entry being limited to merely a cross-reference back to syrup with a Y. At one point in the 1920s, the GPO style manual began including a list with the preferred spelling of certain words. As early as 1922 we see sirup with an I included in that list. Sirup with an I continued to appear on that list as late as 1973, despite Webster’s dictionary shifting to syrup with a Y in the late 1950s.

If the GPO did not publish a formal style manual until 1894, what can we assume was the policy or standards they followed for the earlier years between 1861 and 1894? The GPO’s written direction from their 1894 style manual was likely formal codification of standards that had been put in place years before. Moreover, since at the time, Webster’s dictionary was THE go-to and standard reference for American English, it makes sense that from its very beginning of the GPO in 1861, it chose to follow the spelling preferences presented in Webster’s dictionary.

Unlike the federal government, most states never formally adopted the use of sirup with an I, with a couple of exceptions, namely New York and Wisconsin. The New York College of Agriculture at Cornell University used the sirup with an I from around 1910 through the late 1950s or early 1960s. Perhaps Cornell University had adopted similar editorial standards for their publications defaulting to the conventions in Webster’s dictionary. Sirup with an I was also use by the State of Wisconsin Department of Agriculture for a shorter period in the 1950s.

Although syrup with a Y has become the preferred spelling by the GPO and was clearly the English language spelling recognized and used by most in the United States and Canada, until very recently sirup with an I was still on the books in a few formal titles and rules at the Department of Agriculture. However, in 2015, with the USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service’s issuance of new Standards for the Grades of Maple Syrup, the Department of Agriculture formally decided that it had officially discontinued its spelling of maple sirup with and I and announced that their official spelling would now be syrup with a Y.

And that explains the reason behind sirup with an I. From the early 1860s to the late 1950s with a holdover until 2015, it was the official policy of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Government Printing Office to spell sirup with an I, based on the guidance and direction of Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language. What remains to be explained is how, why, or by whom the decision was made in publishing Webster’s dictionary that sirup with an I should be the preferred spelling over syrup with a Y.

The Towle Maple Products Company St. Johnsbury Ball Jar

A Short Lived Glass Jar but Uniquely Popular Among Bottle Collectors in the Modern Era

Matthew M. Thomas

Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Log Cabin Syrup paper label. From the collection of Scott Benjamine.

Among Ball jar collectors, the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Sure Seal jars are a widely sought-after series. These round jars and glass lids with a snap-down, Lightning style wire closure were manufactured in a unique 22-ounce size in the Ball Sure Seal shape exclusively for the Towle Maple Products Company and were not available or sold to the home canner. Often referred to in the Ball jar collector community as packer jars, product jars, or customer jars, these jars were originally filled with various brands of the Towle Company’s blended syrups for retail sale in shops and grocery stores, most notably the signature brand of Log Cabin Syrup.

Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Great Mountain Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of John Patterson.

There are at least nine variations of the jars that can be divided into groups based on glass color, closure style, and embossing text. For example, most of the jars are Ball Blue in color and show the tell-tale circular scar from being made on the Owens automatic bottle making machine.

There is also a version that is clear in color, in the same dimensions and 22-ounce volume, but has the basal markings of having been manufactured on the Ball Bingham automatic bottle making machine. Other important distinguishing features are variations in the presence and absence and specific wording of the text embossed on the body of the jars.

Front and back faces of clear glass version of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with Lightning style beaded neck closure (RB 320-9).
Example of Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar with intact Crown or Canada Brand Syrup paper label. From the collection of Linda White.

Although the jars found in most collections today do not have paper labels, originally all the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars had paper labels on their front face, either the well-known Log Cabin Syrup brand label or one of a few other brands used by the Towle Company. Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars with intact paper labels from known collections include Log Cabin Syrup, Great Mountain Brand Syrup, and the Crown of Canada Brand Syrup. The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars can be tightly dated to between the middle of 1910 and the end of 1914, based on the known dates of operation of the Towle Company plant in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which is discussed below.

Example of the Ball and SURE SEAL embossed text on back face of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars.

All the jars in the Ball Blue glass color variation feature the Ball name embossed on the back face in script with un underline, a looping double LL, a dropped “a” which are known to date between 1910 and 1923 on Ball made jars. This detail corresponds to the historical record that the Towle Company operated in St. Johnsbury from 1910 to 1914. Under the scripted “Ball” name in capitalized sans serif typeface are the words “SURE SEAL.”

Image of the cover of Red Book No. 12, the definitive collector’s guide for Ball jars.

The Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar is so notable and popular among Ball jar collectors that it has been recognized and described in Red Book 12: The Collectors Guide to Old Fruit Jars. The most recent edition of the Red Book, published in 2018, lists nine variations of this jar (RB 320-4 through RB 320-12). I have created a table based on the Red Book variations to assist in differentiating and recognizing the sometimes subtle differences in these variations.

 

Table illustrating details and features of the nine variations of Towle Maple Products St. Johnsbury jars based on Red Book No. 12.

Company History

The Towle Maple Products Company got its beginning in 1888 in St. Paul, Minnesota as Towle & McCormick’s, selling Log Cabin Syrup in a rectangular metal can. After a year in operation, McCormick left the company and Patrick J. Towle became the sole owner.

In the company’s early years, it packed its Log Cabin brand blended maple and cane sugar syrup in tall rectangular cans as well as in quart and pint sized wide-bodied and narrow-necked bottles, all originally exhibiting paper labels. In 1897 the company introduced its signature cabin shaped metal can, designed by Log Cabin Syrup salesman, James W. Fuller (US design patent 26,936).

Towle Maple Products Company plant in St. Paul, Minnesota that suffered a devastating fire in 1909. Photo from the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.

By the turn of the century, the Log Cabin Syrup brand had become the most popular and best-selling blended table syrup in the country. However, being at the top of the industry did not protect it from the risk or disaster of fire, sadly a common occurrence in large factories at the time. On December 15th, 1909, the three-story brick factory of the Towle Maple Products Company, located on the west side flats of St. Paul, Minnesota suffered a devastating fire. Built in 1901 and opened in 1902, this plant was the Towle Company’s only location for the blending, bottling, and canning of syrups. Although the company quickly went to work to repair the damaged building, they were left in a difficult position and needed to find a way to continue their production and distribution.

Circa 1910, hand colored postcard of businesses in the Bay Street area of St. Johnsbury, Vermont with close-up of Towle’s building (former Cary Company) painted “Towle Maple Products Co.” on front and “Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup” on side.

To their great fortune, in March of 1910, George C. Cary, one of their colleagues and a sometimes syrup supplier, offered to sell to P.J. Towle the Cary Maple Sugar Company processing plant on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Cary was in the midst of expanding and reorganizing his growing maple sugar processing empire and this sale allowed him to get rid of an aging facility and provide capital to help further his company’s growth.

The Towle Company took advantage of this significant interruption in production and sales to makes changes in their product labeling and marketing. It was during this period of rebuilding and reorganization that the St. Johnsbury Ball jar was born and put into use. The location was a boon for the Towle Company in locating their bottling activities closer to the source of the maple syrup they were purchasing for their blends. In addition, being in New England added greater creditability to their syrups by allowing them to legitimately include the state of Vermont on their labels and advertisements.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1912 showing the Towle Maple Products Company location on Bay Street in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Fulling embedding themselves in St. Johnsbury, in April 1910 the Towle Company filed papers of incorporation in the State of Vermont and got to work remodeling the former Cary building situated adjacent to the shared tracks of the Boston & Maine Railroad and the St. Johnsbury & Lake Champlain Railroad. Inside this wooden barn-like building, giant steam-heated copper kettles of 150- and 250-gallon capacity were used to boil and blend maple syrup and cane sugar before being filtered and stored in 550-gallon tanks for packaging in glass and metal.

The Towle Company was able to rebuild and reopen their damaged St. Paul plant later in 1910, permitting the company to bottle syrup in both Minnesota and Vermont. Advertisements from this era list San Francisco as a third location for the company, but the west coast branch was only a warehouse and distribution site with no actual syrup manufacturing or bottling activity taking place.

During their operations in St. Johnsbury, in September 1912 the Towle Company suffered the unexpected death of company founder and family patriarch P.J. Towle. Since the company was privately owned and managed by P.J. Towle, his sons, and son-in-law; presidency of the company then shifted to his oldest son, William J. Towle.

Image of the Pillsbury-Baldwin Building in St. Johnsbury, Vermont which was occupied by the Towle Maple Products Company from 1913 to 1914.

With production running from seven in the morning to midnight, six days a week, the Towle Company rapidly outgrew the Bay Street plant in St. Johnsbury, and in March 1913 moved a half mile to the south into a much newer two-story fire-proof plant built of concrete block. Erected two years before, this plant was vacated by the failed Pillsbury-Baldwin bathroom fixture company. The Towle company continued operations in the former Pillsbury-Baldwin plant for another year and a half before announcing their decision to end operations in St. Johnsbury on December 31, 1914 and move all production activities back to St. Paul. After years of abandonment and neglect, the Pillsbury-Baldwin building formerly occupied by the Towle Company was demolished by the city of St. Johnsbury in September 2019. Likewise, Towle’s first St. Johnsbury location, former Cary Company plant on Bay Street was demolished in 1927 to make room for expansion by the neighboring Ide’s grist mill and grain elevator.

Example of a Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup advertisement noting St. Johnsbury along with St. Paul, and San Francisco as the location of refineries and offices of the Towle Maple Products Company. Saturday Evening Post, October 15, 1910.

With the closing of the St. Johnsbury plant, the Towle Company was forced to reword their labels and advertising and only list their St. Paul, Minnesota plant. It was at this time that the company also decided to discontinue bottling syrup in glass. From 1915 to 1931, Log Cabin Syrup was exclusively packaged in metal cabin shaped tins of pint, quart, or half gallon in size. In the 1910-1914 time period that the Ball jars were made and in use, Towle Company continued to package syrup in metal cabin-shaped tins as well as in eight-sided narrow neck bottles, and round narrow neck bottles, some with screw on caps and others with crown seal caps. Surprisingly, in my years of researching the history and packaging of the Towle Company, I have yet to find a newspaper or magazine advertisement mentioning or illustrating the sale of Towle brand syrups in a Ball Sure Seal jar.

Jar Details and Features

Looking closer at the details of these jars, we see that they were made with one of two different Lightning style closures. They exhibit either a Lightning style closure with lugs, sometimes called experimental dimples or bosses, and a heavy wire lever bail that inserted into the round glass dimples or bosses on the neck (RB 32-5, 320-7, 320-8, 320-9, 320-10, 320-11).  The other Lightning style closure has a beaded neck seal with a thinner twisted wire used to anchor the heavy wire bail below the encircling glass bead or ridge (RB 320-4, 320-6, 320-12).

The two styles of Lightning closures found on Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars. On the left, the beaded neck version with the heavy wire bail anchored by a thinner wire below an encircling glass ridge. On the right, the heavy wire bail anchored in circular glass bosses or dimples.
Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and BY THE TOWLE and front face text of ST JOHNSBURY VT and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.

The embossed text on the upper face of the jars is most recognizable to today’s collectors, since the original paper labels are almost always absent (RB 320-5, 320-6, 320-9, 320-10). There are two variations in the embossed text on the upper body of the jar faces. It is worth noting that this variation in the order and placement of embossed text on the upper face is not recognized in the Red Book at this time. In variation A, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and bottom line of text, “BY THE TOWLE” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side of this variation reads, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” and the bottom line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.” The side with the Ball SURE SEAL text is called the back here because the opposite side without the Ball text is where the paper label originally would have been pasted.

Example of jar with back face embossed text of PACKED IN and ST JOHNSBURY VT and front face text of BY THE TOWLE and MAPLE PRODUCTS CO.

In variation B, the upper line of text on the back side reads, “PACKED IN” and lower line of text, “ST JOHNSBURY VT” (above Ball SURE SEAL). The upper line of text on the front side reads, “BY THE TOWLE” and the lower line of text, “MAPLE PRODUCTS CO”. There is also a rare mistake jar variation (RB 320-10) where the letter “S” was left out of the word Johnsbury, instead written as JOHNBURY.

 

Example of variation with blank upper portion of the front and back faces with the complete Ball name and dimple style closure attachment (RB 320-7 or 320-11).

There are also variations with no embossed text on the upper face where a blank slug plate was used in manufacturing the jars (RB 320-4, 320-7, 320-8, 320-11, 320-12). Although such jars lack embossed text to associate them with the Towle Company and St. Johnsbury, we know from the paper label example for Great Mountain Brand Syrup that such jars with the blank upper face were in fact used by the Towle Maple Products Company. It is doubtful that any other company was given an opportunity to use these unique 22-ounce Sure Seal Ball jars, even those lacking embossed text referring to Towle or St. Johnsbury. Certainly, no examples of such use of this jar by any company other than Towle Maple Products have been found.

All the blue glass versions of these jars contain the words “Ball” and “SURE SEAL” in two lines embossed on the lower portion of one face.

Example where the top of the LL on Ball has been cut off by the blank slug plate (RB 320-8 and 320-12).

This version of the Ball logo is in script form with an underscore and no loop connecting the last “L” of “Ball” with the underscore. In some cases, the top portion of the “LL” in the word “Ball” has been cut off in the manufacturing process (RB 320-8, 320-12). The single clear version of these jars is completely lacking in any of the “Ball” or “SURE SEAL” brand embossing (RB 320-9)

 

Image of the patent date embossed on the base of the Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars.

About half of the varieties (320-4, 320-5, 320-6, 320-7, 320-8) of these jars are embossed on base with the text “Pat’d July 14, 1908” which refers to the U.S. patent number 893,008, awarded to Anthony F. McDonnell for the glass cap combined with a Lightning style wire closure design. All these Towle’s St. Johnsbury jars are 7.25 inches tall, not including the lid and have a diameter at the base of 3.25 inches.

Side-by-side comparison of true or correct Towle’s St. Johnsbury jar glass lid on left and similar, but incorrect Ball jar Lightning glass lid on right.

Also unique to these jars is a very specific, and hard to find glass lid. According to experts in the Ball jar collecting community, the “correct” glass lid for these jars is in the same Ball Blue color as the jar but unlike other similarly shaped and sized lids, the proper lid has a shallower depression in the center and a less steep central ramp.

Profile drawing illustrating the differences in form and depth of trough in correct (on left) and incorrect Ball Lightning lid (on right).

The correct lid also never has any embossed text showing a patent date, which is sometimes present on the similar, but incorrect Sure Seal Lightning style lids. The clear glass lid for RB 320-9 is identical to the correct Ball Blue colored lid, only differing in color.

Examples of other contemporary clear glass product jars with beaded neck Lightning style closures and glass lids, presumably manufactured by the Ball Company. Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products on left and Golden Tree Brand Syrup on the right.

There are a number of clear glass jars of a similar shape and size and specialty packer jars with the Lightning style glass lid and wire closures that were almost certainly made by Ball. These jars have similar embossed wording and were even used for packing blended maple flavored syrups, such as Golden Tree Syrup from the New England Syrup Company and Park Brand syrup from Rigney & Co. Packers of Maple Products out of Brooklyn, NY. However, these jars are of slightly different dimension and volume than the Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars and technically classified as a separate group by Ball jar experts.

As one can see, for the serious collector of Ball jars or Log Cabin Syrup antiques and memorabilia, there are many nuances and details to consider and recognize when seeking to build a complete collection of these jars. Of course the holy grail of Towle’s St. Johnsbury Ball jars are those with an intact paper label. With luck, more such jars will be found and shared.

——————————–

Special thanks to John Patterson, Linda White, Marty Troxell, Scott Benjamine, and Joe Coulson for there assistance with advice and permission to share images of jars from their private collections.

History Chapter in New Edition of Maple Syrup Producers Manual

Matthew M. Thomas

Recently the revised and updated 3rd edition of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual was released as a FREE digital download in PDF format. The newest edition was many years in the making since the 2nd edition came out in 2006.

With this latest edition, I am happy to share that I was asked to contribute as a co-author by revising and expanding the previous chapter titled History of Maple Syrup and Sugar Production, written by Dr. Melvin Koelling.

To get access to the complete download of the manual, send a blank email to mapleproducersmanual@gmail.com and you will receive a link to view and download the 434-page manual.

On-demand print versions of the complete manual will be available for sale in the next few months. If you are interested in a PDF copy of the history chapter I helped write, you can read and download a PDF of only the history chapter here or by clicking on the image of the article.

Bringing New Life to a Film on Minnesota Maple Syrup Making in the 1960s

Note: The following article, written by the creator of this website, appeared in the June 2022 edition of “Minnesota Maple News”, the newsletter of the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers’ Association. You can view the film in the story at this link.

 

By Matthew Thomas

In 1961, the University of Minnesota Extension Service produced a 16 mm color film depicting both old and modern methods of maple syrup production. The film was produced to promote and expand the production of maple syrup in Minnesota. According to the film’s press release, the film “points to the untapped profits in Minnesota’s maples.”

Images from the film. Clockwise from upper left – title image, sugaring in the Mille Lacs Ojibwe community, roadside syrup stand, displaying a can of Minnesota maple syrup.

Titled “Working the Sugarbush: The Maple Sugar Story,” the film was created through the efforts of long time Minnesota Extension Forester Parker Anderson, who provided the script and technical direction, and University of Minnesota Extension visual education specialist Gerald R. McKay, who did the filming. Narration was provided by Bob Doyle, a well-known KUOM radio figure and Director of TV and Radio at the University of Minnesota.

Most of the scenes were taken around Mille Lacs Lake and in the east central part of Minnesota. The purpose of the film is to show opportunities for profit available to those who do a good job making maple syrup. The opening scenes mention how the state’s early Native American residents made maple syrup and show Chippewa Indians at Mille Lacs boiling sap in open air kettles. Later sequences show the selection and tapping of trees with brace and bit and then a backpack mounted power tapper, which was novel at that time. Additional scenes emphasize other cutting edge sap gathering technology for that era in the form of heavy plastic sap collection bags and the 3M Mapleflo brand plastic tubing system. Many different faces appear, ranging from foresters and extension agents to overall clad syrup makers feeding wood fire evaporators in steam filled sugarhouses.

The 22-minute film was one of 12 agriculture related films chosen by United States Department of Agriculture to be featured for the month of January in 1962 in the patio theater of the USDA building in Washington DC. The film was later distributed by state agricultural agents to be shown to groups and at various events around the state.

When it was discovered that the copy of this film was preserved in the archives of the Minnesota Historical Society and was still in good condition, a request was submitted for a digital copy to be made of the 16 mm film. After determining that the University of Minnesota Extension continued to hold copyright for the film, a request was granted for myself and the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers Association (MMSPA) to have permission to share the digital film with the public on our respective websites. A high[1]resolution digital copy is being acquired from the Minnesota Historical Society. Those interested in viewing the film can look for a link to watch and download it which will be posted in the future on the Maple Syrup History website (www.maplesyruphistory.com). Additional arrangements are also being explored for the film to be available for viewing and download at the MMSPA website.

The Man and the Can: Patrick J. Towle and the St. Paul Origins of Log Cabin Syrup

Click on the image above for a link to a PDF of the article.

I am happy to be able to share my recent article on on the origins and early years of the Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup Company. Log Cabin Syrup was started in 1888 by Patrick J. Towle in St. Paul, Minnesota, so it was fitting that this article was published by the Ramsey County Historical Society, home to St. Paul. This article appears in the Spring 2022 edition of the Ramsey County History magazine.

Special attention in the story is given to the company founder, Patrick J. Towle, and his introduction and use of the unique cabin shaped metal can to package and market his syrup made from a blend of maple syrup and cane syrup. Additional topics of note addressed in the article are the realities behind the question of where the idea for the log cabin name and can shape came from, as well as the company’s early use of advertising and promotion in national publications, something that was uncommon for a syrup company in the early part of the 1900s.

The fate of the Log Cabin Syrup company brand was ultimately to be sold to the Postum Company, later to be named General Foods, but as the story shares, that was not the end of the blended syrup business for the Towle family in St. Paul.

Click this link to access a PDF copy of the article.