Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/151

 MAPLE 139 serymen prefer to produce more rapidly grow- ing trees ; as a tree to plant in the streets of towns and villages, and along country roads, it has great merit ; not the least of its excel- lent qualities is the great brilliancy of its au- tumnal colors. The wood is one of the most valuable for fuel, ranking next to hickory, and for charcoal it is esteemed above all others. While the wood of some trees is perfectly straight-grained, that in other specimens pre- sents marked and often elegant varieties ; the curled hard maple presents a pleasing surface of light and shade, and the bird's-eye maple has its fibres so singularly contorted as to produce numerous little knots which look like the eye of a bird ; these varieties and others are much valued for cabinet work of various kinds and interior finishing, while the straight-grained wood is used for making lasts, buckets, tubs, and a variety of other useful articles ; it is also employed in ship building. The sap of this species contains cane sugar, a fact recognized in its common and botanical names ; other maples, the birches, hickories, and some other trees, yield sugar, but none of them in such large quantities or in so pure a state as the sugar maple. On many farms a maple orchard or sugar bush, as it is called, is an important part of the property, and yields a good share of the yearly income. The trees are tapped by boring near the ground, a tube, frequently of elder, inserted, and a vessel is set or hung to catch the sap as it trickles out ; the flow begins in early spring, often in February, and is most abundant when there are warm days and frosty nights. The process of making the sugar is often very crude, and consists of merely collecting the sap and boiling it down in kettles over an open fire ; when sufficiently concentrated the sirup is poured into moulds to granulate. Of late years much more care is given to the manufacture of the sugar, and a house is provided expressly for the purpose, and furnished with improved evaporators and other apparatus to facilitate the operation ; there is a large demand for maple sirup, and some makers send all their sugar to market in this form. According to the census of 1870, the total production of maple sugar in the Uni- ted States was 28,443,645 Ibs., in 28 different states, of which the following contributed the largest amounts : New Hampshire, 1,800,704 Ibs.; Vermont, 8,894,302; Massachusetts, 399,- 800; ISTew York, 0,692,040; Pennsylvania, 1,545,917; Virginia and West Virginia, 755,- 699; Kentucky, 269,416; Ohio, 3,469,128; Indiana, 1,332,332; Wisconsin, 507,192. The total quantity of maple molasses or sirup re- turned was 921,057 gallons. The black sugar maple, which was described by Michaux as a distinct species, is now regarded as only a variety (var. nigrum) of the ordinary sugar maple; the leaves are less deeply lobed, and the whole tree has a darker appearance ; it is said to be more productive of sugar. The striped maple or moosewood (A. Pennsylva- nicum) is a small and slender tree from 12 to 20 ft. high, found in rich woods from Maine to Wisconsin and southward along the moun- tains ; its branches and trunk become striated with dark lines, giving a character by which the tree is readily identified; the leaves are three-lobed at the apex and doubly serrate; the flowers, which do not appear until after the leaves, are in terminal pendulous racemes, and the cluster of fruit is quite conspicuous, In the northern woods the young twigs of this tree are browsed upon in winter by the moose. The wood is regarded as more durable than that of any other maple, but it is too small to be of much value ; it is said to reach three or four times its ordinary size if grafted upon the larger species of maple. Its chief value is as an ornamental tree ; its ample leaves, which at the time of opening are rose-colored, the striped appearance of the trunk, and the conspicuous flowers and fruit all commend it to the atten- tion of the planter. The mountain maple (A. spicatum), found in the same range as the moosewood, is rather a tall shrub than a tree, and forms clumps in moist woods ; the three- to five-lobed leaves are downy beneath, and their very long petioles become scarlet in Sep- tember; the flowers are in terminal, usually erect racemes, and the fruit, which is smaller than in any other of our native species, has very divergent wings. The large-leaved maple (A. macropliyllutn) of the Pacific coast is es- pecially abundant in Oregon, associated with the firs and spruces ; it is a remarkably grace- ful tree, from 40 to 90 ft. high, with widely spreading branches and a rough brown bark ; it is very conspicuous on account of its very large leaves, which are sometimes a foot broad, though variable in size ; they are deeply five- _ lobed and rather thick ; the flowers are in large pendent racemes, yellow and fragrant, and succeeded by clusters of hairy fruit with smooth, slightly diverging wings. The wood of this species is close-grained and hard, and according to Nuttall handsomely veined ; it is much valued in Oregon as furnishing almost the only hard wood obtainable in some parts of the state ; its sap is said to be abundant and saccha- rine. This magnificent tree has been so little planted in the Atlantic states that its hardiness cannot be considered as fairly tested. Another far western species is the round-leaved maple (A. circinatum), called in Oregon the vine ma- ple on account of its manner of growth ; in the moist forests several stems spring from the same root and arch over until the tops reach the ground, where they take root and thus form an almost impenetrable thicket ; it sometimes grows 20 or 30 ft. high, but has more the habit of a shrub than of a tree. The leaves are heart- shaped, seven- to nine-lobed, about the size of those of the red maple ; the flowers are pur- plish, and the fruit is remarkably divaricate; the wood is heavy, fine-grained, and valued for making handles and other small articles. The smooth maple (A. gldbrum) of the Rocky moun-