XII
VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR
Sap-Boiling Time in the Green Mountain State
At ten o'clock the sap began to tinkle all through
the grove. In nearly eight hundred buckets it fell,
drop by drop, and the sugar season had begun. It
was late March, but from the snow to the sky the
day had all the warmth and glow of June. The
sun had been up since before six. By seven it was
shining bright into the Southern Vermont valley
which the Deerfield River has carved out of the
everlasting hills that roll and rise till the cone of
Haystack tips them, nearly four thousand feet
above the sea level. Yet till ten o'clock the maples
sulked.
More sap is boiled in this beautiful bowl-shaped valley of which Wilmington is the metropolis than in any other part of the State. Vermont makes four-fifths of the maple sugar that is made in New England, nearly half of what is made in the United
