By Jim Lundstrom

Imagine you’re a Wisconsin school kid in 1893 and you’re asked to vote for a state tree. You’d feel honor bound to come up with the right tree to symbolize your state. There’s the mighty oak, the urban elm, the tidy pine – all beautiful in their own right and very worthy trees.

But you’re a kid, so you vote with your taste buds. You vote for the majestic Acer saccharum, aka the sugar maple.

While some of those Wisconsin school kids might have been thinking about the beauty of the sugar maple’s flaming fall foliage, it’s a pretty good bet most of them were thinking of the secret sap their families extracted from the trees every spring to create maple syrup and sugar; the striking fall foliage was just icing on the cake.

Those kids were way ahead of the curve. Fifty-five years later, Wisconsin children were again asked to vote for a favorite state tree, and again the sugar maple won (followed by white pine and birch). The Wisconsin Legislature heeded that vote and adopted the sugar maple as the state tree in 1949.

That same year, Vermont and West Virginia adopted the maple as the state tree, and New York followed suit in 1956.

But Wisconsin was there first, thanks to those school kids who were asked to vote for a state tree back in 1893.

Wisconsin has a long history of maple syrup production, first among the Native Americans, who used blocks of maple sugar to trade with settlers. The settlers soon learned from the Indians how to produce their own maple sugar and syrup.

It was only the cheapness of cane sugar in the early 1800s – cheap because it was produced with slave labor – that relegated maple sugar to a luxury in the markets where it is commonly produced. Some pre-Emanicpation Proclamation abolitionists continued to use maple sugar rather than cane sugar produced by slave labor, but the cane sugar daddies had more moola to make things go their way.

A common story told about the “discovery” of maple sap’s sweetness has an Indian throwing a hatchet at a tree. His wife saw liquid dripping from the wound. She collected the liquid and boiled meat in it. The sap sweetened with cooking and the lucky Indian family had the first ever maple syrup-coated meat.

Nice story, says 73-year-old Phil Thompson of Ladysmith who, like his father before him, has tapped maple trees nearly every spring of his life.

“The Indians were first,” Thompson said. But he believes it was their observation of the natural world around them that led to the “discovery” of maple syrup.

“You see the gray squirrels running up and down the tree and they’re going crazy. In fact, that’s when I know it’s time to tap,” he said. “They’re licking that syrup that’s leaking out of little cracks in the bark. The sun hits it just right and it sweetens up somewhat. The squirrels go crazy over it. If I would have been growing up with the Indians and saw that, I’d have tried it too. It’s good stuff.”

Wisconsin ranks fourth in the nation for maple syrup production, behind Vermont, Maine and New York. Wisconsin’s 3,000 maple syrup farmers produced a state record high amount of syrup in 2009, more than 200,000 gallons, or 33% more than the previous year.

“Last year there was sap everywhere. Everybody was full of sap,” said Peter Roth, a second-generation commercial maple syrup producer who owns and operates Roth’s Sugar Bush of Cadott, Wis., with his wife, Dawn. “We had sap come as far as St. Cloud, Minn.. That’s a three-hour hike from our place. He’s not making money, but he didn’t want to pout it down and I was the only guy who would buy it.”

Roth’s parents started the commercial syrup operation in the late 1950s. In 1974 they began selling maple syrup-making equipment. Since he and Dawn bought the business from his parents in 1995, Roth has put more energy into selling equipment, which puts him on the road a lot.

“We cover a large area, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, a little bit of Michigan,” he said. “We do everything in Alaska for the birch sap industry. Last 8-10 years we’ve worked pretty close with all the birch producers in Alaska. They use the same equipment for a little different product. Birch sap reminds me a lot of molasses or sorghum. A spoonful straight is kind of hard to swallow. They use it as an ingredient. Birch ice cream is the best ice cream you’ve ever tasted.”

But Roth isn’t selling spigots and buckets to the syrup farmers. Commercial syrup producers no longer collect sap in buckets.

“The state of the art thing right now is tubing or pipeline vacuum systems,” said Roth. “That was real controversial about 4, 5 years ago. They said you’re stressing the trees, you’re going to kill the trees. An independent research facility in Vermont studied it and thinks applying the vacuum helps bring minerals up from the soil into the trees. The trees have better health. Your production is 30% to 50% better than hanging a pail on the tree. So you’re gaining both sides.”

The magic of the sugar maple begins in March when the nights are still winter cold but the days warm above 32 degrees. The warmth causes sap to flow in the tree. Drill a hole in the southern side of the tree and sap flows like blood from a cut, and once the sap stops flowing and the spigot has been removed, the tree’s wound heals itself and is ready to be tapped again – in a different spot – next year.

The sap run is entirely dependent on the weather. It may be as little as a couple weeks, or as long as a month to six weeks. As the tree comes alive to spring, chemical changes are taking place within to create buds and leaves, which means it is time to let the tree get on with its cycle of life.

Once the sap is gathered it’s brought to the sugarhouse – a name that remains from the days when maple sugar was better known than cane sugar in the United States. In the sugarhouse (sometimes there is no actual sugarhouse, but an outdoor cooking area fueled by wood or gas), the sap is boiled down – or evaporated – into its delicious syrupy state.

Sap straight from the tree is 98% water and 2% sugar. By the time the process of boiling/evaporation is completed, the syrup is about 67% sugar and 33% water. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of pure maple syrup.

If you would like to know more about the magnificent sugar maple and its secret sap, there are plenty of opportunities this month.

March 13, 1 p.m.

Backyard Maple Syruping: Learn how to set up a small-scale maple syruping operation – from identifying a tree, ways to tap and collect the sap, and a processing method for storage using common household equipment. $3 per person. Ledge View Nature Center, 1 m. south of Chilton between Hwys. G and 57 (via Irish Road), W2348 Short Road, 920-849-7094.

March 20, 9:30 a.m.

29th Annual Maple Syrup Saturday & Pancake & Porkie Breakfast: Enjoy the fruits of a Wisconsin spring at Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve, 4815 N Lynndale Drive, Appleton. Pancake and Porkie Breakfast served 9:30-11 a.m. (reservations required, 920-731-6041. Tours of the Preserve's syrup process begin with a hike through the woods for a look at the sugar bush. Last stop will be to see the final processing of the syrup for bottling. After the tour, taste fresh maple syrup over ice cream. $5 tour & breakfast.

March 20, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

16th Annual Maple Syrup Breakfast: Fallen Timbers Environmental Center near Seymour offers sugarbush tours, an ecology hike and breakfast. Tapping kits will be for sale. 920-984-3700.

March 27, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Brillion Nature Center Maple Syrup Camp: Observe hourly maple tree tapping demonstrations, participate in collecting sap, learn old and modern methods of boiling sap to make maple syrup, and sample the finished product over ice cream. Brillionnaturecenter.net.

March 28, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Maple Syrup Sunday: Ledge View Nature Center and Park, Chilton. Free tours, breakfast $6; $3 for ages 6-12; free for 5 and younger. 920-849-7094.