The Rural Voice, 1999-03, Page 22Maintaining the tradition
A Mennonite family still makes
maple syrup the old-fashioned way.
Story and Photos by Sandra Orr
18 THE RURAL VOICE
The old familiar
scenes are still
witnessed at the
Gingerich farm.
Horses pull the
tank -sleigh through
the bush (top) while
family members
gather sap from
buckets (centre) and
empty it into the
tank (below).
Despite the work,
the family operates
1500 taps in a 40 -
acre bush.
you see the image everywhere
when maple syrup season
rolls around: horses pulling a
sleigh through a sugar bush, people
emptying sap pails by hand. While
it's a handy image, most maple syrup
operations are years away from that
kind of intensive workload.
But near Lucknow, Ed,
Gingerich's maple bush of 40 acres
has provided a maple syrup crop the
old fashioned way for years. The
bush is surrounded by pasture and
ploughed fields, and Gingerich's way
of making syrup is reminiscent of
early times, when syrup production
was one of the ways a bush produced
cash. Back then, most farmers had 50
or 60 trees they tapped along with
whatever else they did.
Nowadays, a maple bush is
archetypal in the sense that it comes
with the history of the area as one of
the first crops settlers could sell.
Gingerich's gravel -bottom maple
bush is well-developed and well -
harvested, with only a few hemlocks.
The wood is cut and dried under a
roof. Already, Ed says he has his
wood cut and stockpiled for next
season's crop, either from his own
bush or purchased from the local
sawmills.
About 60 Amish -Mennonite
families live near Lucknow where
several other Amish families harvest
maple syrup. Coming from Ohio, Ed
and Rachel Gingerich moved to
Huron County in 1973 where they
and their family live in a white frame
house, kerosene lanterns with
reflectors providing the only light.
The barn is covered with weathered
boards which are kept replaced.
Several weeks before the syrup
season, the Gingerich bush is made
ready. Taps are inserted into the tree
trunks above or below last year's
holes to be sure of getting a good
run. (Some trees have more than one
pail.) Gingerich never taps the whole
bush in order to conserve the trees
and to distribute the workload. He
admits 40 acres is more bush than
most maple syrup farmers have to
deal with when they work by hand.
An optimum sap run requires
warm days, 40 degrees Fahrenheit,
and freezing nights, below 32
degrees. Last year, the run started
early in February and lasted until
near the end of March. The season is