THE COMMON, OR FIELD MAPLE. 55 



The wood makes excellent fuel, and the very best charcoal. 

 The timber is far superior to Beech for all purposes of the 

 turner, who seeks it for dishes, cups, trays, trenchers, &c., 

 as the joiner for tables, inlaying*, and for the delicateness 

 of the grain, when the knurs and nodosities are rarely 

 diapered, which does but advance its price : our turners 

 will work it so thin, that it is almost transparent." 



As an ornament to the landscape, the Maple has not 

 much to recommend it. Gilpin says of it, " The Maple is 

 an uncommon tree, though a common bush. Its wood is 

 of little value, and it is therefore rarely suffered to increase. 

 We seldom see it employed in any nobler service than in 

 filling up its part in a hedge, in company with thorns, and 

 briars, and other ditch trumpery." And although he after- 

 wards says, " In the few instances I have met with of 

 this tree in a state of maturity, its form has appeared pic- 

 turesque ;" yet his praise of it is so exceedingly slight, that 

 I have very little doubt that his eye, acute as it was to 

 discern what is beautiful in the general features of Nature, 

 could have alighted with greater pleasure on- almost any 

 other kind of tree that can be named. Nevertheless, he has 

 given to the Maple a deeper interest than it ever possessed 

 before ; for " under the large Maple in Boldre churchyard, 

 the Rev. W. Gilpin, after fulfilling his duties in the. most 

 exemplary manner for twenty years, as rector of this parish 

 of Boldre, chose for his last resting place this sweet seques- 

 tered spot, amidst the scenes he so much loved, and has so 

 well described." 1 



By the ancients hardly any wood was more valued than 

 that of the Maple, insomuch that Virgil represents one of 

 his kings as seated on a Maple throne. The great naturalist, 

 Pliny, says that its trunk, for beauty and firmness of grain, 

 is inferior only to the Citron- wood. One kind, from the 

 varied character of its veining, was named the Peacock 

 Maple. The knots called Brusca and Mollitsca were most 



1 Strutt, 



