1S47.] The Maple Family. 49 



Ihe leaves and dirt, and the cautious management of the fire over 

 M-hich it is evaporated. When a fine forest of maples can he 

 found the most economical mode which can be followed in mak- 

 ing sugar, will be to evaporate the sap in large pans set in a 

 water bath, in which the temperature will never rise over 212° of 

 Fah. 



The silver leaved or white maple is not an uncommon occupant 

 of the New England forests. It resembles the sugar maple, but 

 its wood is whiter and softer, and its leaves beneath posses a very 

 fine silvery hue. It is the Acer dasycarpum of scientific botanists. 

 We have a figure of its leaves and branches. Its trunk is among the 

 largest of the maples. It grows about sixty feet in height in fa- 

 vored places. It commonly however is about fifty feet high. Its 

 wood, which is white and soft, is easily wrought, and as it is 

 light and strong it is highly esteemed for ox-yokes. So also it 

 makes a pure white floor, and is much used for chairs; and in- 

 deed where lightness and strength are required, it forms a suitable 

 material for furniture. 



None of the maples can be employed for fence posts, as it is much 

 subject to the dry rot when it is placed in a moist atmosphere, and 

 undergoes a premature decay when resting upon the ground. 



The swamp or Red Maple (Acer rubrum,) starts first into life 

 with the returning spring. Its crimson blossoms, seated upon 

 branches tipped with the same bright color, are seen with pleas- 

 ure. Its leaves in autumn too, while they are the first to remind 

 us that the summer is past, lend their bright hues to enliven and 

 cheer the coming fall. They light up the forest covered slopes 

 with yellows and reds, which amid the greens create a colored 

 landscape which all love and admire. The wood of this kind of 

 maple is also much esteemed, especially that fine variety known as 

 the curled maple. It grows in swamps and in the northern for- 

 ests of New York, and upon the flats of the Racket and Degrasse 

 rivers it is the most common tree. 



The Striped Maple (Acer Pennsylvanica,) is only a middling 

 tree, but it is among the finest of our shade trees; and it is 

 strange that it is so rarely seen planted by our village w^alks and 

 streets. Its beautiful form, its large green leaf, and its hand- 

 some striped trunk, ought ere this, to have made it the favorite 

 shade tree of New York and New England. It grows twenty 

 feet high, and its trunk rarely exceeds eight inches in diameter. 

 Its bark is smooth, and striped lengthwise with green and black. 

 Its flowers are large and yellowish green, they appear after the 

 tree is fully leaved. In the spring its bark peels off after it it is 

 loosened by a few slight blows, and the wood is white and soft but 

 not so strong as the sugar maple. It gives a sweet sap, but less 

 in quantity than the foregoing species. It extends far north, and 



No. IX. 4 



