> Florida???? I doubt very much if Hawkins found Sugar
> Maples in Florida. They are a native of Eastern North
> America. The Sugar Maple tree needs a long freeze in
> order to produce the proper sap. I know of no place
> in Florida where the climate is cold enough to produce
> maple sap. Which is why Vermont, Wisconsin and Quebec
> are the leading producers of Maple Syrup.
Not entirely correct on several counts
1 ) the Sugar maple is most definitely native to Florida.
Source :
the Florida Native Plants Directory of the Association of
Florida Native Nurseries
( http://members.aol.com/afnn/aplants.htm )
has the following entry:
Acer saccharum var. floridanum - Florida sugar maple
2) maple sugar can be obtained from any variety of maple, the Sugar
maple just has the highest concentration of Sugar in the sap
3) The climate you cite will create the highest concentration of sugar,
but a warmer climate WILL produce sugar. The sap produced in the
early spring when the buds are being set will be substantially more
diluted in a warmer climate, by a factor of perhaps 3 to 1 over the sap
produced under ideal circumstances, but the sap WILL will produce
syrup.
It is just that mapling is not *commercially viable* when you have to
produce any quantity of syrup with a "sap to syrup" ratio of 150 to 1!
As any maple producer, can tell you, the ratio of 40 to 1, which is
produced under ideal conditions by the Sugar maple, is hard enough
to keep in business with!
But a tribe of Native Americans, making sugar to put by for the
winter, are not restricted by the same business considerations.
> As for maple syrup being period, it is not. It is
> definitely post period. The Native Americans did tap
> the trees during period, but they didn't appear to
> have shared the secret until the mid 17th century.
It was explained in a very general way to John Sparke, who was the
Chronicaller for the voyages of John Hawkins, and specifically his efforts to
locate and relieve the a settlement of French Heugenots who were in Florida.
(They had to leave altogether because of the Spanish)
I will try to find my references on this. This was also the trip that brought
tobacco and Hammocks to the attention of the English Navie.
Brandu
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