RE: Maple Syrup/Cane sugar/Sugar Loaf: I made reference earlier to the treats my mother carried to school each day. They were called sugarcakes. Grandpa Rowlett would insert spigots in the maple trees. (We've all seen that sticky syrup that runs down the trunk of a tree.) Buckets were hung under the spigots to catch the syrup that drained from the trees. Sometimes the syrup would turn to sugar. Grandma would pat the sugar into small cakes, put them in a pantry to set and dry out. My guess is, the sugarloaf was either that, or brown sugar that had hardened. Brown sugar came in large barrels. When it hardened, the grocer couldn't sell it, so in my neighborhood, he chipped it off with an ice pick and gave it to the kids. What a Treat!!! Speaking of the old 'ice pick', did you ever have a treat that tasted better than a piece of ice chipped from a large block of ice by the Ice Man? Our ice man was Mr. Lee. When he parked the ice truck, the neighborhood kids bombarded his truck to search for loose chips. Sometimes he'd chip us off a big piece. Wrapped in newspaper or an old wrag, we licked it, winter and summer, with our hands freezing and water dripping from our elbows. Pat