252 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Botanies do not describe, can all be made to yield splendid returns to the horticultural 

 exchequer, if the best known varieties are chosen. 



The Persimmon is a hopeful subject. 



The true wild grapes are called upon for new varieties by a sister society, and having 

 already done great deeds, may yet do greater. 



The Crab apple, endowed by nature with a fine aroma, may in time abate some of 

 its undesirable qualities and take on a better form and flavor. 



And the nut-bearing trees readily produced, may be made to yield their merchantable 

 luxuries. 



Foremost in pecuniary interest, however, is the sugar product. Here is a mine as yet 

 but little worked in the West, but still of vast importance. The Maple family, beside 

 elaborating from its slower growths the finest flavored sweet known, furnishes from its 

 rapidest growing member, a sugar only second to the other in flavor, and in a greater 

 quantity. 



Since the last meeting of this Society many people have tried the sugar producing 

 qualities of the Acer negundo, or Honey Maple and in no case within our knowledge 

 without entire success ; the experiments made by one of your committee showing : 



1st. That the Honey Maple produces more sap than the Sugar Maple of equal size, 

 half a gallon per day being obtained from a little tree of three and a half inches diameter 

 and five years old. 



2d. The sap is richer in sugar than the other ; the yield of dry sugar averaging two 

 and eight-tenths per cent, of the tveight of the sap. 



3d. Crystallization takes place always, unless the sap was soured before boiling, or 

 unless it was so badly burned that the sugar was carameled. 



4th. The sugar produced is in general whiter than that from Sugar Maple treated in 

 the same manner. 



Though all the experiments last spring were on a rather small scale, the unanimity of 

 results may safely be taken as proof that the Honey Maple may be relied upon as a sugar 

 producer. 



On many a farm there is waste land upon which taxes must be paid, and from which 

 no sort of revenue is derived. These wastes are generally so gravelly or rocky that 

 where better land is so plenty, as in the West, no attempt is made to cultivate them. 

 Surely a good fuel or sugar producing grove on such grounds is much to be wished for, 

 and it may be had too, for among the rocks is generally a good soil, and several kinds of 

 trees seem to delight in such a location. 



Dacotah, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Indian Territory and New 

 Mexico together, contain an area of steppe or arid plain of immense extent and of little 

 use to a civilized people except it may be for pasturage. The bane of this great region 

 is drought, which is in part caused by its altitude, but is also owing to a great extent to 

 its treeless condition and the consequent rapid evaporation of what moisture is derived 

 from the atmosphere. But one course can be successfully pursued to redeem this region 

 from its semi-desert character. Trees by the millions of millions must be planted; at 

 first the kinds which will stand the droughts, and parching heats, and sweeping winds, 

 afterwards, others as the conditions are ameliorated. For this work the Cottonwood, the 

 Mesa Pines and the Honey Maple are indispensable. These trees show by maintaining 

 their hold in such a soil in spite of the prairie fires, that they will grow there if protected. 



The renovation of this great region is a work too great for individual enterprise, it 



