|04 0" *^^ Airtrkan Sugar Maf It, 



fame favftnnalis wlicre mo'ifture prevails, what I never could have expe^ed to'fee wJthm 

 five degrees of thf line, and not -more than 50 or 100 feet above the level of the fea, th« 

 drofera lifts its humble head from a, hed of the fphagnum paluftre. 



[_To le coiitinued.l 



s, 



V. 



On the Sugar Maple. By Citizen TesSIER *. 



'UG AR is one of the aiofl common produ£ls of the vegetable kingdom, and is found 

 ready formed in a great number of fpecies. It is 'obtained from the wild cherry-tree, 

 (merifier), the poplar, the birch, the nut-tree, the pods of gleditzia, maize, the afclepias 

 fyriac?., &c. ; but the tree which next to the fugar-cane affords this produdl in the greateft 

 abundance and heft quality is the fu gar maple (acer faccharinam). 



Many fpecies of maple grow naturally in France, Germany, Switzerland, and England. 

 The acer opalus is found particularly in Italy, and that which Linn.eus diftinguidies by 

 the name of acer tataricum in Afia. But America is the country of mod of the fugar 

 maples. It was from Quebec that Mr. Sarafm forwarded this tree to the Jardin des Plantes. 

 Father Charlevoix, at the diftance of a league and a half from Quebec, was regaled, to ufe 

 his own exprefTion, with the faccharine juice of maple. Kalm, at the pod of Tliree Rivers, 

 between Montreal and Quebec, faw the procefs of making fugar with the fap of the maple. 

 The acer faecharinum is there fo common that it is ufed for fuel. 



A climate in which the winters are long and fevere is bed: adapted to the fugar maple. 

 I do not know whether it is found in a more northerly latitude than that of Canada. In 

 that country, though fituated in the latitude of about 44°, the cold lafts longer, and is more 

 intenfe than in France, on account of the enormous mafles of water, the woods and the 

 mountains. Towards the fouth, the maple becomes very rare, fo that few are feen beyond 

 the lower part of Louifiana. Kalm has remarked, that they grow to a lefs height in the 

 fouthern parta of the United States than in Canada, and that they do not grow in New 

 Jerfey and Pennfylvania, except on the fides of the Blue Mountains, and the fteep banks of 

 livers expofed to the north. And even in this expofhion they io not obtain more than 

 one third or a' quarter of the height they acquire in Canada. The intelligent Dupratz', 

 author of the Hiftory of Louifiana, confirms what Kalm has advanced. The fpecies o£ 

 maple which we poffefs in France do not thrive excepting in places where the cold is of 

 long duration. Kalm aflures us, that being in the neighbourhood of Chefter, a fmall town 

 on the Delaware in Pennfylvania, he faw red maples on a marfhy foil accompanied by the 

 alder— an obfervation which points out the foil in which this tree ought to be planted. The 

 Aigar maple is alfo found in the State of Vermont in Kenrucky, in the country beyond the 

 Ohio, oppofite to Pennfylvania and Virginia. According to the author of the Amcricaw 

 Geography, fugar is made from it in thefe countries ; but it does not feem to be an obje6t' 

 «f great intereft, as the author of that geography fimply mentions the fad". 



• Inferred in the Arnales d'Agriculture, and thence c^i^ into La. Decade Philofophique, &c. Noj 9^^ 

 •tm f L from which lad, wprk the preferu trawflation is made, 



6 Citizen 



