The maple tree that produces maple syrup, the subject of our last column, is the official state tree. Only the yellow birch is nearly as valuable (at the moment) on a log-for-log basis. In the forest, the maple grows to 80-90 feet with perhaps 30 feet of clear stem. In the open the trees quickly branch out in all directions from a short trunk. That is one of the reasons sugarers love to tap trees along the open roadside because the amount of sap that can be obtained from a tree is in direct ratio to the amount of the live crown. The first white people to realize the value of the maple tree were the Canadians. Early French settlers (Les Habitants) in clearing their land were very careful to preserve at least two two-thirds of their woodlot that contained maple trees so they would provide “sirop” and “sucre de erable.” In preserving the sugar trees the French habitants were a century ahead of the British colonists, who would settle to the south. I would be willing to bet that some of those same habitants, who eventually crossed the St. Lawrence River into New York and would become the most daring of the early river drivers and the best of the lumbermen, now have descendants in the village.

The method of making syrup over open fires with a deep kettle holding the sap remained unchanged for hundreds of years. After a time Yankee ingenuity realized that sap could be evaporated much more quickly from a shallow open pan than from a deep kettle and thus was born the first evaporator pans (1863).

The size of a sugar bush is described by the number of buckets you hang, not by how many trees you tap. By that standard the sugar bushes in this area were modest in size. Barry’s Pioneer Farm on Stetson Road tapped trees all the way to the back door of Jacob Steshka’s Park Street Restaurant, The Hathaway Farm (now owned by Ginny and Glen Snyder) tapped many fine maple trees on their property, Stuart Wilson (now the De Silva property) on Moody Road had a nice operation with excellent syrup and Litchfield Park tapped some of their own maple trees. The syrup produced in its earliest years was used primarily by the family and as gifts for guests and friends until new tax laws demanding bona fide income resulted in a more expanded effort.

Mary Brooks, whose father Barney Sovey worked as a guide and assistant to the caretaker at the Read & Strange property for 57 years, tells me that the syrup produced there high on the slopes of Mt. Morris went all over the world as gifts for family and friends. Mary, who wrote a composition on Maple Syrup when we were in school together (Ms. Jacqueline Shaw, teacher), noted that the Read family preferred syrup in its amber form (best as topping for French toast or pancakes since it has a more pronounced flavor). Mary also remembered that her father told her that it took 50 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. Since the norm is between 33 and 40 gallons, this statement gave me pause. (I knew better than to argue with Mary. Her memory is sharp as a Swiss army knife and besides, who ever won an argument with a woman?)

Whenever I seek information I don’t need to log in on the internet. I simply stop by Diane Helm’s Adirondack Bagel & Deli. Diane and her coterie of regulars are always ready and eager to give advice on any subject. (The morning I stopped by, the reintroduction of the wolf to the Adirondacks was the heated topic and the rhetoric would have lifted a hot air balloon.) Anyway, between bites of Diane’s latest creation, an inside-out chocolate macaroon, I think I learned the reason Mary was correct in her assertion that it took 50 gallons of sap to make a quart of syrup in her father’s sugar house. The average sap contains about 2 percent sugar, and it must be boiled until it reaches a temperature of 210 degrees, or 7 degrees higher than the boiling point of water at sea level. So depending on the altitude, (the Read family’s sugar bush was at 2,030 feet elevation), the boiling point can change accordingly. Atmospheric pressure can also affect the reading. As an example, Ray Martin’s Tupper Lake group, who hunt elk each fall in the vicinity of Telluride, Co. (elevation 9,300 feet), observed that it took longer to cook their meals at their tent camp location. They discovered that water boils at 193 degrees at that elevation, and that for every 10-degree drop in boiling temperature, cooking time is approximately doubled, a pretty drastic inverse ratio between boiling point and altitude. So, Mr. Sovey at 2,000 feet above sea level had to boil the sap longer. In addition, if the sap was less sweet ( the lower the sugar content, the more sap required), it would take more sap to make a quart of syrup. Mary tells me that a little trick her father used was to place a thermometer in a pan of water and bring it to a boil, and then he would take whatever figure the water boiled at and add 7 degrees to it. This would tell him the correct temperature at which maple syrup is boiling for that particular day, and his candy thermometer would then be in adjustment for that perfect temperature of 219 degrees when sap turns to syrup.

In concluding this week’s column, I should point out that the name Read & Strange, where Mr. Sovey was employed for so many years, is no longer correct, even though it will always be referred to as such by local old timers. The Strange family interests in the property ended almost 72 years ago. The forest tract was carved and formed by what must have a been especially large and abrasive glaciers. Deep passes with roaring brooks cascade alongside intimidating steep rock faces and a deep crystal-clear lake resembling a Norwegian fjord lies ina protective shadow of Mt. Morris. Shielded by ramparts like Buck Mountain and its distant location have given it a singular remoteness. Add to that carefully planned timber harvesting, and it remains arguably one of the finest privately owned woods in the Adirondacks. It has escaped the “synergism of destructive natural forces and human exploitation” that has so violated other preserves. The Read & Strange Park (there I go again) is a special place, and special places do not stay special by accident! The benevolent stewardship it has received from successive generations of the Read family continues today. In an era of fast-diminishing woodland tracts, it remains an authentic gem and a valuable neighbor of this community.