Gregory Tufford, age 11, of Besmsville, Ontario, Canada, for his question:

Who discovered maple syrup?

We do not know who made this marvelous discovery    but the person was certainly an American Indian. His tribe lived somewhere in the northern Appalachians or westward across the plains as far as Manitoba. For this wide region is the native range of the sugar maple. The discovery that these generous trees can be tapped to yield sap was made ages ago. We know this because the Amerindians shared the secret with the New England Pilgrims, way back in the 1620'x.

The sugar maple takes its time to grow and lives to be very ancient. It is ready to yield its first sweet harvest at the age of 40 and reaches its peak production at the age of 80 years. Some of the old timers growing in New England have lived for centuries. Some still bear the scars made by the 1 1/4 inch augers that the Pilgrims used to tap the sap, and some even bear scars made by Indian tomahawks. It is claimed that such ancient maple trees may still yield yearly helpings of sap for making sweet syrup.