7. ACER SACCHARINUM SUGAR MAPLE. 49 



seasoned sap-wood is of a light, slightly yellowish color; the heart-wood 

 brownish of various tints. Specific Gravity, 0.6912; Percentage of Ash, 

 0.54; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6875; Coefficient of Elasticity, 

 146108; Modulus of Rupture, 1149; Resistance to Longitudinal Pres- 

 sure, 619; Resistance to Indentation, 257; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 43.08. 



USES. This is one of the most useful trees of Canada, New England 

 and the Middle States. Its timber is used in the manufacture of furni- 

 ture, for interior finishing, flooring, ship-building especially for keels 

 etc., where great durability and strength are required shoe-lasts, pegs, 

 wooden-ware etc. Wooden-bowls of this timber are considered the best 

 in market. It makes excellent fuel, and its ashes are very rich in alkali, 

 yielding much of the potash andperlash of commerce. 



Maple Sugar in the tastes of many the most delicious of sweets is 

 almost exclusively the product of this tree, the very small quantity 

 which is made from other Maples, being in proportion very insignificant. 

 It is made by evaporing the sap to a proper consistency, and then pour- 

 ing into moulds, where it hardens in cake form, or it is stirred while 

 cooling so as to make a granulated sugar. The sap is procured by tap- 

 ping the trees, usually with a to f in. auger, in early spring, some weeks 

 before the buds begin to swell, and into the hole a spout is driven to 

 carry the sap away from the tree. It drops from the spout in good 

 weather, at the rate Of from 30-100 or more drops per minute into a 

 bucket placed to catch it. It is then clear and colorless, seeming quite 

 like water, and of a slightly sweetish flavor. About 3 or 4 gallons are 

 usually required to make a pound of sugar, the sweetness of the sap 

 varying more or less with different trees. In quality, too, if not also in 

 sweetness, it is variable in the same tree, being better early in the 

 season than later. Two or three pounds or less of sugar per tree is the 

 ordinary average yield when the trees are standing close to each other, 

 as in groves, but where isolated or thinly scattered, so that the .tops are 

 extensively developed, the yield is much larger. In the small sugar 

 "bush" or "orchard" (as a Maple grove used for sugar-making is 

 called) of about seventy-five trees, which we have, we get an average 

 yield of five or six pounds per tree in good seasons; but it must be 

 borne in mind that the trees are very large and scattered, having fully 

 developed tops. They are tapped with one spout; it is customary with 

 some to use two or more. A few select trees would probably yield eight 

 or ten pounds each in a season. 



Tapping when prudently done does not seriously impair the health of 

 the tree. Naturally it kills the fiber for a little way, directly above and 

 below the place of tapping, but in two or three years new wood forms 

 7 



