But there has always been a certain amount of trade in pure maple sugar and syrup. A part of the city and town population comes from the country, where they have known the genuine article, and they have generally been able to supply their wants by dealing directly with the producers. The progressive and well-to-do sugar maker has also worked in this field. Of course there are farmers and others who, having pride and capacity, do their utmost to produce the best goods and market them in the most advantageous manner. Such sugar makers are unwilling to sell their high-grade goods to the mixers at a low price, but make every effort to reach a steady market of regular customers. In the effort to make such a market more general, several maple sugar makers’ associations have come into existence. That of Vermont is the most notable. The annual meetings of this society have done much to stimulate improved methods, as well as to build up a legitimate trade. The association has established a central market, has adopted a registered trade-mark, and guarantees absolute purity. Its trade, through advertising and other business methods, has reached good proportions. But there is only a very small part of the business, even at the present time, which is not in the hands of the mixers. [Illustration: MAPLE SUGAR CAMP IN ONE OF THE LARGEST GROVES IN NORTHERN VERMONT.] The following quotations are from the testimony of Mr. Madden before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Fifty-seventh Congress, pages 85 and following: Mr. Madden. I would like to speak to you a moment in regard to maple syrup. That is a subject that will undoubtedly interest you all. We are in a very peculiar position in regard to maple syrup. We do not believe it is right that a syrup composed of maple syrup made from either the sap of the maple tree or from maple sugar and mixed with glucose should be sold as a maple syrup; but we do believe that a maple syrup made from syrup of the maple sugar and mixed with cane-sugar syrup or refined-sugar syrup, I will say—because beet and cane sugar are the same after they have been through boneblack—we do believe that should be sold for maple syrup, and I will tell you why. In the first place, the amount of sap of maple syrup—that is, syrup that is made from boiling the sap of the maple tree without converting it into sugar—is so limited that it would not, in my judgment, supply more than 5 percent of the demand for maple syrup in the United States.