The tradition of making syrup from sugar cane and sorghum began in East Texas in the second half of the nineteenth century with migration from the Deep South, and Van Zandt County offered fertile soil and abundant water well suited to sugar cane syrup farming. Willis Jarrell Hale became the first farmer in Van Zandt County to gain notoriety for syrup production when he began farming ribbon cane in 1884 on the Hale Farm, two and a half miles east of Canton, where he developed irrigation by flood method from a large spring on the property and often produced 600 gallons of syrup per acre. Hale Farm Syrup earned a reputation for superior quality across Texas and nationally, and Hale produced it for 23 years. In 1915, Henry D. Jones bought the farm from Metza Hale, son of W.J., continued the syrup-making tradition, expanded the operation, and publicized it over the next 45 years. He built a modern syrup mill powered by a gasoline engine, farmed 20 acres of ribbon cane, and sold Hale Farm Syrup from Missouri to California as well as throughout Texas. During the Great Depression, the Hale Farm employed many people from the Van Zandt community. Demand for ribbon cane syrup declined after World War Two, but production continued until 1960, and the land remains in the Jones family.