SUGAR MAPLE. 85 



The largest recorded tree of this species, in Europe, is at Worlitz, in Saxony. 

 At the expiration of sixty years after being planted, it was fifty feet high. 



The largest sugar maple in the neighbourhood of London, is at Purser's Cross, 

 which, in 1835, had attained the height of forty-five feet. 



Several large trees of this species are found on Goat Island, at the falls of Ni- 

 agara ; but they are far inferior in size to myriads of others, in Canada, New 

 England, and other parts of America. 



Soil, Sttuatiofi, ^'c. The natural habitat of the Acer saccharin um is the steep 

 and shady banks of rivers, which rise in mountainous regions, and in all elevated 

 situations, where the soil is cold and humid, free, deep, and fertile, and not sur- 

 charged with moisture. When cultivated, the same soil is recommended as in 

 the Acer platantiides ; but as it is less hardy, the situation should be more shel- 

 tered. In Europe, it is always propagated by seeds, where its rate of growth 

 varies from one to four feet per annum. In the United States it is either propa- 

 gated from seeds, in nurseries, or is transplanted irom the woods or fields, to the 

 site where it is intended to remain. The age of this tree in America does not 

 usually exceed two hundred years. 



Lisects. Few insects or their larvae seem to feed upon the leaves of the sugar 

 maple, with the exception of the Apatela americana, described by Ur. Harris, in 

 his "Report on the Insects of Massachusetts injurious to Vegetation," and also 

 figured and described in Smith and Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," under the 

 name of PlialcBna aceris. The caterpillar of this insect eats the leaves of the 

 various kinds of maple, as well as those of the elm and chesnut. They commence 

 spinning in October or November, and come out from their webs or cocoons 

 from April to July. The moths fly only in the night. But this fine tree suffers 

 much from the attacks of the borers or larvae of the Clytiis speciosus, denoted by 

 the accompanying figure. This insect is accurately 

 described and figured in Say's " American Entomol- 

 ogy;" and an account of its habits is given by Rev. 

 L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hampshire, in Har- 

 ris' " Report." He discovered the insect in the beetle 

 state, under the loosened bark of one of the trees, and 

 traced the recent track of the larva, three inches into 

 the solid wood. Dr. Harris says, "It is the largest 

 known species of Clytus, being from nine to eleven- 

 tenths of an inch in length, and three to four-tenths 

 m breadth. It lays its eggs on the trunk of the maple 

 in July and August. The grubs burrow into the 

 bark as soon as they are hatched, and are thus protected during the winter. In 

 spring, they penetrate deeper, and form, in the course of the summer, long and 

 winding galleries in the wood, up and down the trunk. In order to check 

 their devastations, they should be sought for in the spring, when they will rea- 

 dily be detected by the saw-dust that they cast out of their burrows ; and, by a 

 judicious use of a knife and stiff" wire, they may be cut out, or destroyed before 

 they have gone deeply into the wood." 



Pi'operties and Uses. The wood of the Acer saccharinum, when newly cut; 

 is white, but after being wrought and exposed for some time to the light, it takes 

 a rosy tinge. Its grain is fine and close, and when polished, its lustre is silky. 

 It is very strong and heavy, but wants the property of durability, for which tlic 

 English and American white oaks are so highly esteemed. The northern wood, 

 when dry, weighs forty-six pounds to a cubic foot, but that grown south, weighs 

 cnuch less. When cut, and properly dried, it makes excellent fuel, which is 

 equally esteemed by some, for that purpose, with the oak and hickory. When 

 exposed to the alternations of moisture and dryness, it soon decays, and for this 



