218 TREE ANCESTORS 



are still exported from Canada, but the amount is trifling, almost 

 as is the number of households that still hold to the once universal 

 custom of making their own soap. 



The Indians, from Canada to Dakota and southward to the 

 Carolinas, made maple sugar, and the first settlers learned and 

 improved upon their art. It is difficult to estimate the quantity 

 that is consumed locally or sold at the present time, since most of 

 it is adulterated by the producers, and real maple sugar and syrup 

 have come to be regarded as Roman luxuries where formerly they 

 were little used by anyone who could afi'ord cane sugar. 



The other species of maple are less important commercially and 

 are usually not reported by name in statistics, or distinguished by 

 lumbermen, but they are all similar in their characteristics, and 

 the foregoing somewhat lengthy enumeration of the utilitarian 

 virtues of the sugar maple must suffice for our purpose. 



The maples are widely distributed in North America, their 

 collective ranges extending from the valley of the St. Lawrence 

 southward to Florida and Texas, and westward to Alaska north- 

 ward to latitude 55°, southward along the Pacific coast to southern 

 California, and in the mountain States to eastern New Mexico and 

 Arizona, and northern Mexico. The bulk of the American forms 

 are found in the deciduous forest region of southeastern North 

 America, and similarly, the bulk of the more numerous Old World 

 species are found in the valleys of southeastern Asia. 



]\Iany of our native species are used as shade trees, for which 

 they are admirable, although slow growing. Several European 

 forms are also widely planted, both in their native lands and in 

 this country, and several of the smaller, more dehcately lobed and 

 red leaved oriental species are much used in ornamental plantings 

 for parks and lawns, although none have the handsome flame colored 

 shades that are common swamp maple displays in the Fall of the 

 year. There are so many maples that a detailed discussion of 

 their individual features and occurrences would be tiresome. 



It is, however, very interesting to observe the results of the 

 segregation caused by the Glacial period on the Tertiary circum- 

 polar forests. Few maples were actually exterminated by the severi- 



