A half-century ago, the world was trying to heal the wounds of global war. People were rushing to make up for lost time, grasping for material wealth. This was the era of "total electric living," a phrase beamed into living rooms by General Electric spokesman Ronald Reagan. Environmental awareness was barely a gleam in the eye of even Rachel Carson.And yet, Helen and Scott Nearing were on a totally different path, having left the city for the country, eschewing materialistic society in a quest for the self-sufficiency they deemed "the Good Life." Chelsea Green is pleased to honor their example by publishing a new edition of "The Maple Sugar Book," complete with a new section of never-before-published photos of the Nearings working on the sugaring operation, and an essay by Greg Joly relating the story behind the book and placing the Nearings' work in the context of their neighborhood and today's maple industry.Maple sugaring was an important source of cash for the Nearings, as it continues to be for many New England farmers today. This book is filled with a history of sugaring from Native American to modern times, with practical tips on how to sap trees, process sap, and market syrup. In an age of microchips and software that are obsolete before you can install them, maple sugaring is a process that's stood the test of time. Fifty years after its original publication in 1950, "The Maple Sugar Book" is as relevant as ever to the homestead or small-scale commercial practitioner.
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About the Author
Helen and Scott Nearing individually and together wrote more than thirty books, including several recently reissued by Chelsea Green Publishing. While the Nearings are perhaps better known for their subsequent homestead at Forest Farm in Maine, their original home in Vermont stands out as the most romantic time of their remarkable lives. The Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine, was created to preserve in perpetuity the Nearings' farm as a working example of peaceful self-reliance.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Neat book,
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This review is from: The Maple Sugar Book (Hardcover)
This book is a description of way the Nearings earned hard cash to sustain their homesteading project. When they first built their homestead in Vermont in the early 1930s, they thought they might make the cash income for purchasing things they couldn't grow on the farm by selling wood. However, they soon found themselves owners of a sugar maple bush, and the family who had been tapping the sap up until then showed them the ropes of the maple sugaring business. It wasn't long before they discovered that they could earn their annual cash needs during the six week sugaring season, leaving the rest of the year free to grow food, construct farm buildings, and write.The book starts with a history of sugar making. Then it includes some how-to information (current as of the 1940s). This section includes chapters on maintenance of the sugar bush, equipment for sugaring, sap and weather, making sugar, making syrup, and marketing. The book closes with a section that describes some of the philosophy of the Nearing's homesteading project, especially those aspects related to maple sugaring. And in the end, there are a few recipes for using maple syrup. Because of Scott Nearing's academic training and experience, the book has an academic flavor, and the chapters on the history of sugaring are quite well documented. The details in the book about sugaring aren't quite sufficient for rank newbies to take off and try to start their own sugaring operation- -if you want to know exact details about constructing a sugar shack or using an evaporator, it would be better to look for a more technical book with a recent publication date. The book's main value is for those who wish to learn more about how the Nearings put their thoughts about cash income and bread labor into action. With that in mind, the book is truly a classic, and well worth reading many times through.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maple Sugar,
By 1JoeKathy (Claremore, OK USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Maple Sugar Book; Together with Remarks on Pioneering as a way of Living in the Twentieth Century (Hardcover)
This may be the best resouce for tapping and make maple sugar ready for your kitchen table. Very easy book to read.
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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sap weather, first sugarhouse, spout driver, new sugarhouse, syrup crop, maple production, fancy syrup, sap ice, maple industry, gathering pails, sap season, gathering tank, sugar weather, sugar tools, make syrup and sugar, maple producers, sugar makers, finished syrup, concrete stack, sap movement, sugar wood, maple products, sugar bush, making maple syrup, thousand buckets Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New England, North America, Thoreau Institute, Solon Robinson, New York, John Burroughs, Vermont Agricultural Report, Thomas Jefferson, Knothe Nearing, Betty Ann Lockhart, Benjamin Rush, Timothy Wheeler, Moses Mather, New Hampshire, Samuel Williams, Hank Mayer, Report of Vermont Board of Agriculture, Hiram Cutting, American Museum, Picture Packs, Samuel Goodrich, Leander Coburn, World War, Hard Maple Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
sap weather, first sugarhouse, spout driver, new sugarhouse, syrup crop, maple production, fancy syrup, sap ice, maple industry, gathering pails, sap season, gathering tank, sugar weather, sugar tools, make syrup and sugar, maple producers, sugar makers, finished syrup, concrete stack, sap movement, sugar wood, maple products, sugar bush, making maple syrup, thousand buckets Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New England, North America, Thoreau Institute, Solon Robinson, New York, John Burroughs, Vermont Agricultural Report, Thomas Jefferson, Knothe Nearing, Betty Ann Lockhart, Benjamin Rush, Timothy Wheeler, Moses Mather, New Hampshire, Samuel Williams, Hank Mayer, Report of Vermont Board of Agriculture, Hiram Cutting, American Museum, Picture Packs, Samuel Goodrich, Leander Coburn, World War, Hard Maple Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
25
books
cite this book:
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- Progressive Politics in the Global Age by Henry Tam on page 206, and page 220
- Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (The Lamar Series in Western History) by Professor John Mack Faragher in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Citizenship and Democratic Doubt (American Political Thought (University of Kansas)) by Bob Pepperman Taylor in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Garden Spot: Lancaster County, the Old Order Amish, and the Selling of Rural America by David Walbert in Back Matter
- Martha Stewart's Gardening: Month by Month by Martha Stewart in Back Matter
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