Sugarhouse draws visitors, but little sap
March 20, 2005
By Peter Hirschfeld Staff Writer

Sweeping views of the Worcester Range greet visitors intrepid enough to brave the rutted muddy road that leads to the Jerome Family Sugarhouse in Montpelier.

For Stephen Jerome, sugaring patriarch, the two-mile dirt path separating his rustic sugarhouse from the well-traveled pavement of Towne Hill Road is usually a welcome buffer. Saturday, however, he hoped for heavy traffic.

His is one of more than 100 sugaring operations opening their doors to tourists this weekend as part of Vermont's Maple Open House Weekend. The annual promotion, replete with a tree-tapping ceremony by Gov. Jim Douglas in Poultney, lures out-of-state sweet tooths into the Green Mountains with the promise of homemade maple treats and bucolic eye candy.

But while visitors may be flowing, the sap is not. Thick snow pack, too-cold temperatures and a south wind schemed against sugarmakers Saturday, most of whom are still waiting for their first heavy flow of the season.

"The weather isn't warming up to what we need it to be," said Jerome, who taps about 500 trees on his hilltop grove. "Mother Nature plays a big role."

Jerome's old-style operation resists the technology that has enabled some of the state's larger-scale sugaring farms to produce large quantities of the Vermont export. Jerome and his brothers and sisters use metal buckets to catch the sap and an old farm tractor to bring it from tree to sugarhouse, just like their father did 54 years ago.

"We kept everything like it used to be when we were growing up," Jerome said. "Metal buckets, gathering by hand. The most we ever made was a hundred-odd gallons. It gives visitors a dif-ferent perspective. They can go see the bigger guys like Morse or Bragg, then come here and see the smaller scale. It shows them they could do it themselves – provided they're nuts."

Despite putting in 12- to 15-hour days during the sugaring season, which generally spans late February to mid-April, the Jeromes aren't tapping big money. All have day jobs, and Jerome's brother, Joe, said they're lucky to break even.

"If we had to charge what this stuff was worth, it'd cost you $200 a gallon," Joe Jerome joked. "It's a hobby. We wouldn't do it if we didn't love it."

No one had showed up at the Jerome Farm as of late Saturday morning, but Stephen Jerome said in years past they've had a "dozen or so" tourists come to watch them boil.

"Last year we had people from as far away as Michigan," Jerome said.

Jerome said the "Vermont name" and statewide promotional efforts, such as the open house weekend, have allowed small operations like his to attract Internet customers from Florida, California, Alaska and even Hawaii. The Jeromes sell their own maple syrup, as well as syrup bought wholesale from larger farms and their own brand of maple syrup salsa. Jerome said he hopes to be turning a profit "a few years down the road."

Just a few miles away from the remote Jerome Farm, Morse Sugar Farm in East Montpelier, one of the biggest maple draws in the state, was hosting a demonstrably larger turnout. Owner and operator Burr Morse called the open house weekend an important marketing strategy.

"I believe in the promotion of Vermont maple," said Morse, who thinks other states are positioning for a share of the maple market. "New York has signs that sugarmakers can apply for and put on the road – Vermont doesn't have such a thing. Sugaring is growing as far west as Iowa. Lots of states would love to have the image Vermont does and they're trying to get it. We've got to put our name out there and kept promoting."

Vermont is the nation's leading maple syrup producer with an annual output of about 500,000 gallons. Cash receipts for syrup and other maple products totaled $20 million in 2004, according to state records. The Proctor Maple Research Center in Underhill Center, funded by the University of Vermont, estimates the maple industry's total economic impact at $110 million annually.

"It's a huge portion of our tourism economy," said Jason Aldous, director of communications at the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. He said the department does track maple-tourism numbers, but said sales of maple products account for a substantial portion of money spent on goods in Vermont.

"The Maple Open House Weekend is a big event and a huge draw, for in-state tourists as well as out-of-staters," Aldous said. "We don't have the exact numbers, but from what we understand talking to sugarmakers anecdotally, it's become bigger and bigger every year."

As farmers like Jerome and Morse meet and greet some of those visitors this weekend, they'll keep a finger to the wind and eye on the tap.

"It'll come," Morse said. "If we have the right weather, we can get a full year in two weeks. You've got to be ready for it, and most people are. The sap will run that fast."