CHAPTER XX 



The Majple 



The maple family, or Aceraceae as it is called, belongs to an 

 order of plants knowTi as the Sapindales, which is named from its 

 largest family, the soapberry family, a large group of mostly tropi- 

 cal plants. In all there are 20 plant families grouped in this 

 order, containing over three thousand existing species. The maple 

 is one of the smaller but important families of the order Sapindales. 

 It comprises trees, and in a few instances shrubs, with well marked 

 characters of wood, leaf, and flower, especially the winged fruits 

 or keys (technically samaras) which are familiar to all. 



Usually the maples are segregated into 3 genera, although there 

 is a great variation in usage in this respect. These 3 genera are: 

 Dipteronia, with a single species in China; Negundo, or box-elder, 

 sometimes included with the true maples; and Acer, the maple, 

 with upwards of 100 existing species, mostly both beautiful and 

 useful widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, 

 extending across the equator to the mountains of Java, and reach- 

 ing toward South America in the uplands of Central America. The 

 name Acer is the classical name of the European maple. 



It will probably come as a surprise to most of my readers to 

 learn that maple, and particularly the sugar maple, has a strength 

 and stiffness of wood considerably greater than that of the white 

 oak, and that this heavy tough narrow ringed wood, which takes a 

 high pohsh, is one of our most valuable timbers. Lumbermen 

 have been cutting it at the rate of over a billion board feet annually. 

 A large part of this production comes from the States of Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia, and the 

 supply is being rapidly depleted. Although available commercial 

 supplies will not last for many years the tree is in no danger of 

 extinction for it is a strong vigorous agressive tree, well able to 

 hold its own on fertile fairly well drained land. 



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