Maple King

The Making of
A Maple Syrup Empire

By Matthew M. Thomas

Maple historian Matthew Thomas’ great read of George C. Carey’s dominance of the maple market in the early 20th century. Carey, a struggling salesman in the fabled Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, finds his rainbow via persistence and luck, and accepting risk that others refuse to undertake. Originally selling groceries to village general stores between Portland, Maine and Burlington, Vermont, Carey closed a difficult sale by taking 1500 pounds of maple sugar in trade. Surely the grocer had taken the sugar in trade and grinned upon the handshake. Months later on a train ride, and having been unable to unload the sugar at a breakeven price, Carey bumps into a tobacco plug salesman and dickers a small trade to get the salesman to convince his Virginia company to at least try substituting maple sugar for cane sugar in its product, by under selling the price of cane sugar. This deal took place in the late 1800’s after the price of cane sugar had dropped below the price of maple sugar. And…it’s a loss leader. But it was an effective ingredient and super salesman Carey parleys his foothold into a big contracts to provide maple sugar for chewing tobacco flavoring. The old sell at a loss, but make it up on volume!

Carey establishes his base of operation in St Johnsbury, Vermont. The location is a wonderful marriage: where the access to Mapleland’s supply joined the train tracks of demand. He erects warehouses along the train route, builds and contracts sugarhouses incountry, and hires agents to buy maple syrup and sugar throughout northern New England and southern Canada. He builds a large factory to process maple syrup and sugar. He puts St J on the map.

There was nothing special about the maple sugar needed to flavor chewing tobacco. Grade C is works just fine. So Carey develops higher end markets for syrup and candies while shipping sugar from the lower grades to Virginia. It is easier to buy a producers’ entire production at a set price if you stand to profit by simply reselling the bottom grades. And like A.A. Low in the Adirondacks, the key was the railroad transportation network. He was well on his way to cornering the market and setting the price on the supply side. Again, a perfect, well executed plan for the maple industry, and it appears no tree will be left untapped…until disaster strikes.

Economy of scale is not a New England trait, especially in terms of agriculture. Critical mass is difficult to achieve. Typically, New England has always been about trying to make more out of less, inevitably leading to boom-and-bust cycles. Think timber, wool, waterpower, milk, and now even snow; all industries nurtured and then strangled by the very market forces that begat them and due to the ultimately limited natural resources. But George Cary was a visionary for the maple industry. He peered beyond where the train tracks disappear behind the next hill and saw markets and capital to retrieve and deploy. Maple remains a sustainable and renewable resource. But as the Maple King found, markets rule, and tend to be fickle.