Maple sugaring has a history in New Jersey that began centuries ago with the Native Americans Indians and colonists.
This is an excellent winter family or kids group activity. In New Jersey, the maple sugaring season runs early February until mid-March.
New Jersey is at the southernmost region for the maple sugaring and as a result, today there are no commercial maple sugaring farms in NJ. While commercial farms are not available, New Jersey has several parks that conduct maple sugaring programs for education and demonstration purposes.
While the maple sugaring process was started by native American Indians, it later evolved in the mid nineteenth century by farmers who began to use metal spikes, metal buckets, and metal tanks for sap collection and storage.
There are still many places in New Jersey that are open to the public where visitors can get to experience and become involved with the nineteenth century process of tapping trees by hand and making maple syrup. The process begins with the tapping of Maple trees, collecting the sap, and then producing the syrup by boiling over an open fire and evaporating it down to the final product of Maple syrup. It takes 35 to 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup.
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