It’s sweet on the tongue and sticky on the fingers, and a lesson in agriculture kids won’t soon forget.

Agriculture Literacy Day was celebrated by children throughout Orleans County Tuesday. Each year, volunteers across New York state give their time to read an agriculture-related book to children and teach them about the crop spotlighted in the text.

Maple production was the topic this year, and kids at Warren P. Towne Elementary in Medina intently listened as Niagara-Orleans Dairy Ambassador Michelle Smith, a junior at Medina High and an FFA member, read “Sugarbush Spring” by children’s author Marsh Wilson Chall. A sugarbush is the collective reference to maple trees that are connected by a network of plastic tubing used in the collection of sap.

Second-graders in the Red Cluster — classes taught by Courtney Diebel, Andrea Roland, Merry Hodgson and Tim Dunham — meandered into the gymnasium to hear the story about a little girl helping her grandpa on the maple tree farm during sugaring season. But the story wasn’t the best part of the event for the youngsters. They showed their true excitement when Flyway Farm owner Terry Laubisch started telling them all about the business and answering all sorts of questions; Laubisch also asked some of his own questions, though.

“Did you know trees have belly buttons?” Laubisch asked. Many children shook their heads, which prompted the maple farmer to show them what a tree’s belly button looks like. The “belly button” is the hole drilled in the side of a maple tree, which is then kept open with the tap allowing sap to drip into plastic tubing and flow to the sugarhouse, where it is boiled down and made into a wide array of products.

“Those belly buttons are what we look for when we go into the woods,” Laubisch told the kids. “Wooden taps are what my grandfather and great-grandfather used.”

One child asked why the holes were called belly buttons, to which Laubisch replied by telling the child to lift up his shirt to compare his belly button to the piece of tree the maple producer was holding.

A belly button in a tree does indeed resemble a regular belly button, the child agreed, which is how the holes got their name.

Laubisch not only brought a piece of a tree with him to the school, but also a variety of taps — wooden, metal with a hook to hang a bucket and small ones with tubing connected to them. As he spoke about how it takes 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup, Smith and fellow FFA members Bailey Hartway, Jenna Roberts and Stefani Elliot passed out samples of Flyway Farm maple syrup.

While Laubisch’s trees “are saying we’re done” for the season, there were many students licking their fingers and trying to get the last drop of sweetness from the little paper cups they were handed. Then the hard questions started.

“How many buckets does it take?” asked Mason Pecoraro, a boy in the Red Cluster.

“You need one bucket for each tree. In my case I need 800,” Laubisch said. “I have a friend who has 20,000.”

Pecoraro’s eyes grew wide and all he could say was, “Whoa.” Laubisch said he also has a friend who has about 50,000 maple trees, and for those with large farms, this is how they earn a living.

A question that led to even more questions was: How did you learn to make maple syrup? While Laubisch and many others have learned from their parents and grandparents, the children wanted to know how those generations learned. To go back 300 or 400 years, Laubisch told the story of the first people to make maple sugar — the Native Americans, who eventually taught the pilgrims, whose sugaring secrets were eventually passed down to today’s generation.

With the weather hitting 60 degrees these days, maple season is over. Traditionally the season begins around Valentine’s Day with tree tapping and waiting for warm days and cool nights in order to get the most sap out of the trees. Cool nights allow the trees to produce additional sap. Once the weather stays warm and doesn’t drop below freezing at night, the maple trees use the sap to feed the buds that turn into leaves.

The book read on Tuesday was one of many copies read throughout the state. Laubisch, who is also the Wyoming County Maple Producers Association vice president, said the state association purchased $3,000 worth of books, which are then given to the schools.

Contact reporter Miranda Vagg at 798-1400, ext. 2225.