THE SUGAR CROP 239 



312. The sugar maple. Maple sugar and maple sirup are 

 products of a distinctly American industry, the United States 

 and Canada being the only countries in which these products are 

 made. The Indians were making sugar from the maple trees 

 during the period when the earliest settlers came to America, 

 and this was the chief sugar used by the early settlers. 



The amount of maple sugar and sirup produced is not of 

 great commercial importance. While all the maples have a 

 sweet sap, it is only from three species the sugar maple, the 

 black maple, and the red maple that sugar is made in commer- 

 cial quantities. Indeed, it is from one species, the sugar maple, 

 that almost all the sugar and sirup are made. This species is 

 very widely distributed, extending from eastern New England, 

 New York, Tennessee, the southern Appalachians, the Ohio 

 valley, the Lake states, and the adjacent parts of Canada, 

 and extending as far south as Arkansas. A sugar maple tree 

 yields from 10 to 20 gallons of sap during the season. The 

 sap will average about 2 per cent of sugar. Thus a tree will 

 yield from 2 to 3 pounds of sugar or about three pints of standard- 

 grade sirup. 



313. The honey bee. The honey bees of the United States 

 produce annually from 175,000,000 to 200,000,000 pounds of 

 honey, valued at about $24,000,000. So great has been the 

 growth of the beekeeping industry that the United States, from 

 a mere beginning in 1860, now leads the world in the value 

 of bee products and in progressive methods of bee culture. 

 California is the leading honey-producing state. 



Honey is used extensively in the manufacture of cakes and 

 cookies, because it has been found that honey is a preservative 

 as well as a sweetener. Honey is also used largely for sweeten- 

 ing and flavoring soft drinks and, to some extent, in sweetening 

 hot drinks, such as coffee and tea. Beeswax is used extensively 

 in the arts and sciences. 



The Italian bee, introduced in the United States in 1860, is 

 now the most profitable variety and, in varying degrees of purity, 

 is found in nearly all parts of the United States. The German, 



