We were shown a fine specimen . . .

. . . of sugar made from the box elder which abounds in this county. It was made by Mr. Picket, of Bear Grove, and is superior in grain to anything we ever saw made from the tree. In sweetness and flavor it is equal to the common maple sugar, and as the box elder is nothing more than the ash-leaved maple, can be called maple sugar itself. Wouldn’t it pay for farmers to make their [own] sugar from this tree. – {Guthrie Gazette.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 2