FOKEST TREES. 199 



In its native woods the Sugar Maple attains to a lofty height, often 

 in rich soil measuring trom 100 to 120 feet, with a circumference of 12 

 feet. Like the Elm, the head is lost in the general strife for room, and 

 is small in proportion to its great height, wanting the fulness and 

 roundness of outline, which it readily acquires when favoured with space 

 and free access to air and sunlight in the open clearing. 



The bark of the Maple is light-grey, smooth, till it attains to the 

 age of from fifteen to twenty years, when it begins to form rifts at the 

 lower portion of the trunk. Every year as the wood increases the bark 

 becomes more rugged, and in the old forest tree it is thick, bluish-grey, 

 and deeply furrowed. Where the soil is wettish, unseemly knots and 

 huge excrescences may be seen on the trunk of some of the old trees. 

 The disease may be caused by injury during its early stages of growth, 

 an interruption of the sap or a puncture in the tissues of the inner bark 

 by insects, but whatever be the cause, while the symmetry of the trunk 

 is deformed, the thrifty backwoodsman, always good at expedients, turns 

 the ugly excrescences to good account and converts these woody lumps 

 into useful beetles for splitting rails, driving posts, and wedges, and 

 similar purposes. A good Hard Maple knot is no despicable instru- 

 ment in the powerful hand of a Canadian settler in the bush. 



The beautiful markings in the grain of the wood of the Maple, 

 forming what is called Birds-eye and Curled Maple, cause it to be highly 

 valued for ornamental cabinet work. 



The wood of the Maple is hard, finely grained, and takes a good 

 polish ; it is largely used by the carpenter, the cabinet maker and 

 machinist. The timber is used by the wheel-wright and waggon-maker, 

 when well seasoned, being prized for its durability and great hardness 

 for axles. For firewood the wood of the Maple is second only to that 

 of the Hickory, but being more abundantly distributed throughout the 

 Dominion, it is more generally used and is considered the very best of 

 fuel ; it burns readily giving out a great degree of heat. The ashes 

 yield the best lye for the home manufacture of soap, and for the pro- 

 duction of pot and pearl ashes as an article of commerce. The Maple 

 requires a generous soil, and indicates to the settler good paying Wheat 

 growing land : where the soil is cold, wet and mossy, the trees when 

 they do appear are stunted, thin and scraggy, the sap is weak and 

 watery, yielding a poor return to the sugar maker. 



Like the Pine, the Maple has many enemies among the insect 

 borers ; to obtain the larvae, the tree thus infested becomes the resort of 

 the Woodpeckers ; several species of these hardy birds winter with us, 

 making their abodes in the thick forests. 



