Making maple syrup in Butler County

To the Editor,

The recent article that was in the D. A. R. about making maple syrup in Vermont caused me to think about making maple syrup here on this farm during World War II. I do no think maple syrup had ever been made here in Butler County before, or since. I do not know if all of the readers of this paper know that sugar was rationed like many other things. That is why Dad made maple syrup. Coffee being rationed upset more people than sugar, I think.

I remember Dad one morning saying, "Well I have never made maple syrup. Guess this is a good time to do that." Dad didn't buy any equipment to do the job. Picked up his hand drill and a few bits. Ask me if I wanted to help. My two younger brothers were still in grade school. We walked all over this farm. We counted how many trees we had tapped. Then we used the half gallon canning jars for buckets. Dad put a wire around the tops to hang the jars. I still have a few of those jars here. Somewhere!!

There was a kind of tree that grew here then that had a soft center, could hollow that out, made the best spouts ever. I have some of those too. I must find these things and put in my museum. I guess this is the only time maple syrup was made here in Butler County. Dad did that for three years I think. Some people really thought they were so starved for sweets during the war. I do not remember us ever feeling like that. We made sorghum every fall. Can really make some lovely deserts out of sorghum. Dad loved to put sorghum in his coffee for sweetner.

Of course Dad didn't use the car to gather the sap. Couldn't get the car where some of the trees were. By the way gas was rationed. Couldn't take a team and wagon either. Out of some scrap lumber Dad made a little sled that one horse could pull and he put some bid cans that had lids on the sled. We boiled that sap down into the best syrup ever. Could have sold twice the amount we made. How much a gallon? I haven't the least idea. Let me suggest, don't ever drink the raw sap!! You will never get out of the bathroom.

Would be hard for Dad to believe how much a gallon of pure maple syrup costs now. A few years ago I went to a sale, and purchased a big barrel of junk. In that barrel was a gallon of maple syrup. Was in a wooden shipping box. The syrup is in a metal can. Still liquid. From the postmark was shipped over 30 years ago. We have talked about using the syrup. The children say a special time. I have decided, when I am 90 I shall have pancakes with pure maple syrup for breakfast. My granddaughters may say, have to wait until you are a 100. They keep telling me I have to live to be a 100.

Must add in our many travels we have been to Vermont. Showed the children how maple syrup was made.

Irma Houts Epps

Poplar Bluff, Mo