SAPINDACE. 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
99 
Acer barbatum, like many species of the genus, varies greatly in the size and shape of its leaves. 
The most generally distributed of the varieties, and one of the most marked in its extreme forms, is 
the Black Maple, first noticed by the younger Michaux on the banks of the Genesee River in New York, 
where it still forms a forest of considerable size. 
. 
gallons of sap, usually containing from two to three per cent. 
of sugar, or from two and two thirds to three and a half ounces 
per gallon. Individual trees, however, vary much in productive- 
ness ; and those standing by themselves on high ground, with a 
large development of roots and branches, generally yield more sap 
than trees crowded together in the forest. The highest percentage 
of sugar recorded is 10.20 for a tree in Vermont in a small flow late 
in the season, 5.01 per cent. being the average of this tree during 
the season (Wiley, Bull. 51, Chemical Div. Dept. Agric. 1885). 
The primitive method of obtaining the sap consisted in cutting 
with an axe into the side of the tree, two or three feet from the 
ground, a notch slanting a little upward in order that the sap might 
drop from the lower end into a concave wooden spout about a foot 
long which was inserted in the bark below the notch, and from 
which it then flowed into a cedar pail placed upon the ground or 
hung upon a nail driven in the trunk. Such a notch, although it 
yields a rapid flow owing to the large surface exposed, injures the 
tree, and is now seldom used ; instead, one or generally two holes 
are bored about three quarters of an inch into the trunk on the 
south side of the tree with a three-quarter-inch auger, and into 
these holes are driven short spouts made by hollowing out pieces 
of Elder or Sumach wood. The sap is collected from the pails 
every day and carried to the sugar camp established at a central 
and convenient spot; here it is allowed to evaporate for a short 
time, when it is boiled to the consistency of honey in kettles or in 
It is then 
dipped from the pans, passed through a woolen strainer, and al- 
shallow copper or iron pans made for the purpose. 
lowed to stand for eight or ten hours to deposit suspended impuri- 
ties. This part of the process is called “syruping off,” and much 
of the product is sold without further concentration in the form of 
maple-syrup. When the syrup is to be converted into sugar it is 
carefully poured into a kettle for the final process called ‘“sugaring 
off,” and boiled over a brisk fire. 
ing over, a few drops of cream are occasionally added, or a piece of 
To prevent the syrup from boil- 
fat pork is hung on a string a few inches below the rim of the pot, 
and cold sap, milk, or the white of eggs, is added from time to 
time to clarify it. It is kept simmering over a slow fire until a 
heavy scum rises to the surface ; this is skimmed off and it is again 
boiled until it reaches the proper consistency. ‘This is determined 
by stirring a small quantity in a saucer, when, if it grains, the syrup 
has been sufficiently boiled ; or by spreading it on the snow, when 
it should candy or become like glass as it grows cold. If the test 
is satisfactory, the syrup is poured into moulds and allowed to cool, 
when it is ready for market. 
Maple-sugar has the appearance of raw cane-sugar, except that 
it is rather darker in color, and it loses in refining the peculiar 
flavor for which it is valued. . It often contains a considerable per- 
centage of melite of lime, a substance that feels like sand in the 
mouth, and seems to increase in quantity in proportion to the length 
of time the tree has been tapped. (See Lahontan, Nouveaux Voy- 
ages dans l’ Amcrique Septentrionale, ii. 59. — Castiglioni, Viag. negli 
Stati Uniti, ii. 180 ; also an account of the Sugar-tree in a letter 
addressed to Thomas Jefferson by Dr. Benjamin Rush of Phila- 
delphia, published in the third volume of the Transactions of the 
American Philosophical Society, 64.—Guibourt, Hist. Drog. ed. 7, 
iii. 606. — J. G. Jack, Garden and Forest, ii. 302.) 
The leaves of the Black Maple’ are usually three- 
About 40,000,000 pounds of maple-sugar and 2,000,000 gallons 
of maple-syrup are made annually in the forests of the United 
States, — Vermont, New York, and Michigan producing the largest 
The yield will probably decrease rather than increase 
in volume as the Maple forests are destroyed and the price of other 
quantities. 
sugars is lowered. Land covered with sugar orchards is still con- 
sidered, however, the most productive part of many farms in some 
parts of the northern states, and orchards are occasionally planted, 
although a large part of the maple-sugar produced in the United 
States is obtained from the forests or from natural groves left 
standing when the forests were cut away. 
The testimony of early travelers in North America shows that 
the nutritious and sugary properties of the sap of the Maple and of 
other trees were well known to and made use of by the Indians be- 
fore the earliest settlement of Europeans in New France or in New 
England, and that the making of maple-sugar was an established 
industry of the Indians during the last half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and before the discovery of the upper Mississippi River by 
Europeans (1673). 
who traveled in America between 1756 and 1771, states explicitly 
Bossu, a French officer of much intelligence 
that the French learned the method of sugar-making from the In- 
dians (Nouveaux Voyages dans l Amcrique Septentrionale, 237); and 
the testimony of earlier travelers points to the same conclusion (see 
Lesearbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, ed. 1618, lib. vi. chap. 
xvi. 865. — Sagard, Grande Voyage, 102.— Pierre Boucher, Histoire 
Veritable et Naturelle de la Nouvelle France, 44. — Nicolas Denys, 
Histoire Naturelle de Amérique Septentrionale, ii. 316. — Leclercq, 
Etablissement de la Foy, i. 252 ; Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspesie, 
chap. vi. 124.— Joutel, Journal Historique, 352. — Rasles, Lettres 
Edifiantes, iv. 83. — Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages Américains com- 
parees aux moeurs des premiers temps, i. 188. — James Smith’s Cap- 
tivity, 36, 68.— See, also, a paper on the evidence relating to 
sugar-making by the Indians, by H. W. Henshaw in the American 
Anthropologist, iii. 341, and a paper by A. F. Chamberlain in the 
same magazine, iv. 39, on The Maple amongst the Algonkian Tribes ; 
and papers by William D. Ely in Garden and Forest, iv. 171, 183, 
207). 
1 Acer barbatum, var. nigrum, Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. 
364 ; iv. 148, f. 27. 
A. nigrum, Michaux f. Hist. Arb. Am. ii. 238, t. 16. — Pursh, FV. 
Am. Sept. i. 266. — Poiret, Lam. Dict. Suppl. v. 669. — Nuttall, Gen. 
i. 253.— Elliott, Sk. 1. 450.— De Candolle, Prodr. i. 
Sprengel, Syst. ii. 225. — Don, Gen. Syst. i. 650.— Spach, Hist. 
Veg. iii. 104; Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 2, ii. 170.— Dietrich, Syn. ii. 
1282. — Koch, Dendr. i. 532. — Bailey, Bot. Gazette, xiii. 213. 
A. saccharinum, var. nigrum, Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. i. 
248.— Torrey, Fl. N. Y. i. 136.— Loudon, Ard. Brit. i. 411. — 
Bell, Geolog. Rep. Canada, 1879-80, 54°.— Sargent, Forest Trees 
N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 49.— Watson & Coulter, Gray’s 
Man. ed. 6, 117. 
A. Rugelii, Pax, Engler Bot. Jahrb. vii. 243. 
Acer saccharinum, var. pseudo-platanoides, Pax, Engler Bot. Jahrb. 
095, — 
vii. 242. — Wesmael, Gen. Acer, 45. 
Acer saccharinum, var. glaucum, Pax, Engler Bot. Jahrb. vii. 
242, — Wesmael, Gen. Acer, 45. 
A. saccharinum, var. Rugelii, Wesmael, Gen. Acer, 45. 
