AMERICAN FORESTRY 



13 



The Sugar Maple is probably the best known hardwood 

 tree native to North America. All who have visited 

 the North woods know its beauty, stateliness and healthy 

 appearance. Lumbermen all over the northern hardwood 

 forest region are familiar with its value, and the wide 

 range of uses of its wood; and the farmer boy regards 

 this tree as a real friend, for when tapped it produces 

 large quantities of sap, from which the delicious maple 

 sugar and maple syrup are manufactured. 



At all seasons of the year this prince of forest trees 

 may be distinguished with little difficulty. The grayish 

 to black bark on old trunks roughened by shallow fis- 

 sures is distinctive and the slender brown twigs marked 

 with pale dots are positive means of identification. In 

 summer its large, simple and opposite leaves with coarse- 

 ly toothed lobes and delicate texture are also distinctive. 



The fruit of the Sugar Maple does not mature until 

 September. It often persists far into winter, while that 

 of the Red and Silver Maple ripens in early summer. The 

 seeds of Sugar Maple germinate soon after falling to the 

 ground and develop into small seedlings, which often, 

 form dense mats upon the forest floor. As many as 

 50,000 seedlings have been counted by the writer on a 

 single acre of woodland in northern Pennsylvania, and 

 similar pictures can be found in New York, Michigan, 

 Wisconsin and other regions where the Sugar Mapie is 

 common. 



There is no more positive distinguishing characteris- 

 tic of the Sugar Maple than its buds. They are brown 

 in color, sharp-pointed, conical and covered with eight to 

 sixteen exposed scales. They are clustered at the ends 

 of the twigs and occur solitary along the side of the 

 twigs. If once recognized they cannot be confused with 

 those of any other tree. 



Four of the six Maples native to the eastern United 

 States reach a size sufficiently large to classify them 

 among our important timber trees. They can be distin- 

 guished from each other by the characteristics given in 

 the key on the following page. 



A ROADSIDE LINED WITH SUGAR MAPLES 



The sugar maple is being used in many sections in planting highways and "Roads of Remembrance" and this picture shows how 



perfectly the tree is adapted to this use. 



