MILTON — With a power drill, a tap, and a metal bucket in hand, Gov. Phil Scott with the help of U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tapped a maple tree in Milton for a ceremonial first tree-tapping of the season Friday.
At Georgia Mountain Maples, a class of Milton Elementary second-graders sat in a snowbank anxiously awaiting the arrival of the officials — some even wearing suits under their snow pants for the occasion.
The chosen tree sat at the top of a winding dirt road, among miles of black and blue tubes snaking between the maples. Though the ceremonial tree tapping was done the old-fashioned way, with sap pooling in a bucket, most of the sugarbush’s trees are already connected by a series of plastic pipes and tubes that take fresh sap down the hill to the sugarhouse to be boiled.
When Scott and Perdue crested the hill on ATVs, the kids brushed the snow off themselves in anticipation.
“We apologize for the heat today,” Scott joked about the weather when he arrived, which was in the high 20s. But Kevin Harrison, the president of Georgia Mountain Maples, said that was probably warm enough to get the sap running by afternoon.
When the time came, Scott drilled the hole, and Perdue tapped the spigot, called a tap or a spile, into the tree. Cheers erupted from the crowd — though the sap stayed soundly inside the tree.
To speed up the process, the kids hugged the tree as tight as they could to warm up the sap. But warm weather is a double-sided coin, Harrison said. If it gets warmer than 60 for more than a couple days, the sap will still run, but the flavor of the syrup won’t be the same.
Vermont has the biggest maple industry in the country, producing more than half of the United States’ maple syrup, Scott said. The only place that produces more maple than Vermont is its neighbor to the north — Canada.
“One tree down, only 120,000 more today to go,” Scott laughed.
“We’re really proud of our culture,” Scott said. “The maple industry is tremendously important to Vermont.”
Harrison said once the sap really gets flowing, they’ll have as many as 30 people walk every foot of tubing to look for holes chewed by deer or squirrels to make sure their operation is in tip-top shape. His family also owns a construction company, and he said though those jobs can be harder to fill, when they’re hiring for the maple business, people can’t wait to apply.
Purdue said that while Vermont has its agricultural specialties, it shares farming culture with many states.
“While this tapping a maple tree and syrup production is a big part of the culture here, agriculture is a big part of the culture of most states,” Purdue said. “This is what you all do, along with dairy and other things. It’s part of the fiber of the people, and it’s really important to come out like this on a cool brisk early March morning.”
Back inside Georgia Mountain Maples’ sugarhouse, everyone indulged in a big breakfast: pancakes, sausage, donuts, biscuits, and of course, fresh maple syrup.
“Anything you can do with maple makes it better,” Scott said. “You can add it to almost anything or put it on almost anything, and it’ll make it better.”
