Page:LA2-NSRW-3-0166.jpg



MAPLE

1166

MAPLE

culty. The arrangement of the lines of latitude and longitude in circles is the most common way, and answers the purpose fairly well. The lines of latitude are numbered north and south from the equator, and the longitude east or west of a given line, usually either Greenwich, England, or Washington in the United States. This serves to indicate the position of a country. Maps are made on a certain scale; as, one inch of the map may represent one mile of of the country. Different colors are used to mark different countries, and water, mountains, high plains and other physical features are also often indicated in the same way. The art of making maps is ancient, the Egyptians having made some rude attempts though the Greeks cons:der Anaximander (560 B. C.) as the pioneer map-maker. In the 15th century the revival of Ptolemy's teachings made a cha. ge in the charts made; Mercator and others among Italians and Germans made valuable contributions in the i6th century; and Sebastian Cabot made his map of the world in 1544. A topographical map represents the details of a country very minutely, as the mountains, hills, rivers and plains. A hydrographical map is one representing the waters of the world, as oceans, seas, bays} with their coasts.

Ma'ple, a species of the genus Acer, being mostly trees well-known by their palmately lobed leaves and winged fruits. The genus contains about 100 species, and is distribated throughout the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. They are among the most prized of trees for park and street planting, and nearly all of them become finely colored in autumn. The autumn colorings of the red, sugar and silver maple are especially brilliant, their red and yellow and orange of purest tones. Among the numerous well-known species are A. sac-char urn, which produces the maple-sugar and perhaps is the best and most popular of the maples for shade; and A. saccharinum, the silver maple, with numerous varieties, is a quick-growing tree. Other prized forms are the red or scarlet maple (A. rubrum), which is common for street and park planting; black maple (A. nigrum); Norway maple (A platanoides), resembling the sugar-maple somewhat and occurring in numerous garden forms; the box-elder (A. negundo), which is much used in the west. The sugar, hard or rock maple is a very beautiful and a very useful tree; tall and splendid, yielding the highly prized maple-sap, and its wood the most valuable of all the maples. It grows from 50 to 120 feet high, its form is dome-like, its leaves are smooth, dark green and very glossy. In autumn the leaves turn a clear, light, yellow, light red or orange, the individual tree appearing to keep year after year to almost exactly the same shade as the season before. In the

spring flowers appear with the leaves, greenish-yellow blossoms hanging in drooping clusters. The samara or key-fruit also is greenish-yellow and droops from a branch. The bark of old trees is a dark gray-brown and is deeply furrowed; that of young trees, smooth. The wood is extremely hard and strong, in color reddish brown, takes a high polish, is extensively used for furniture and employed for shoe-lasts and pegs. (The bird's eye and curled maple are due to peculiar conditions of the wood, undulations of the fiber). In earliest spring the sap begins to flow, and flows for about three weeks; a tree of average size will yield annually from four to eight pounds of sugar. The range of the sugar-maple is wide; it is highly valued as a shade alnd ornamental tree.

The silver, white or soft maple is of rapid growth and much beauty, widely planted as an ornamental tree. Its average height is about 50 feet, but it sometimes attains 120 feet. Its branches are long and inclined to drooping, its lustrous leaves are pale green above and silvery white underneath. It thrives along river-banks, is found from Maine to Florida and west to the Dakotas and Indian Territory.

The red or scarlet maple is one of the first trees to deck itself out in spring; very early, before the leaves come, it puts forth its exquisite, drooping, crimson blossoms; in the fall it is one of the first of the maples to glow in scarlet and orange; in winter its twigs turn to richest red. Spring flower, autumn leaf, winter twig and the wood all are red; the tree is well-named. The wood is used in cabinetwork, and is of special value when there is a curly grain. The tree is common in the north, growing as far down as Florida and west to the Dakotas and Texas. Its bark is dark gray; the leaves are simple, opposite and rounded; and have from three to five lobes.

Tn-v black maple is a variety of the sugar-maple; it yields sap from wnich sugar is made. The bark is blackish, the under-leaf downy. It is found along streams and in rivei-bottoms. The Norway maple is an introduced tree that has become familiar in park and by roadway. It is a handsome tree with a wealth of thin, smooth leaves, shaped like those of the sugar-maple. The box-elder or ash-leaved maple belongs by reason of its fruit, a double-winged seed, to the maples, but in manner of growth suggests both asn and elder. The foliage of vivid green adds much to its value as an ornamental tree. It is a rapid grower, but is not long-lived; its range is from Vermont and Pennsylvania southward and westward. It usually rises 30 to 50 feet; its branches are wide-spreading; and the leaf is made up of three or five irregular, coarsely-toothed leaflets. The samaras are large and a yellowish-green. See Louns-