FORESTRY ON THE COUNTRY ESTATE 



503 



WHERE THE RED MAPLE EXCELS. 



winter, when a good germination the 

 following spring will be secured. Un- 

 less you are raising a lot of them to 

 underplant a thicket, with the eventual 

 formation of a sugar bush in mind, it is 

 better to get young nursery saplings, the 

 8 to 10 foot size costing about 80 cents. 

 Young maple seedling will endure any 

 quantity of shade and can be under- 

 planted with just a clearance of the 

 bush about the site. In its soil require- 

 ments the sugar maple is peculiar. 

 Almost any rich, clayey soil will grow it, 

 if not too dry, within certain tempera- 

 ture limits. While its natural limits ex- 

 tend south to the Gulf, it thrives best 

 in the northerly range. It is very rare 

 in the coastal plains of the Atlantic 

 States and cannot be grown there with 

 much success. As in most tree-planting 

 operations one must let Nature be the 

 principal guide, and if a species is con- 

 spicuous by its absence in your locality, 

 there is usually some good reason why 

 it is missing, and attempts to introduce 

 it artificially are not apt to end in suc- 

 cess. We have no sugar maples in the 

 forest of Interlaken, though red maples 

 are abundant, and the planted silver 

 and Norway maples do well. Our soil 



is sandy and sour though no wetter than 

 any rich, moist loam in the clay and 

 lime base soils to the west of us where 

 the sugar maple thrives. It is not the 

 sand which keeps it out, as sugar 

 maples are famous for their growth and 

 abundance in the Champlain sands and 

 gravels of southern Michigan. In the 

 writer's opinion, the absence of any 

 lime base in our soil accounts for the 

 non-appearance of this tree. 



As to growing it in forests, as both 

 the lumber and sugar are valuable, and 

 neither one interferes with the quality 

 of the other, it should be grown in 

 standard forest of pure stand, as its 

 European cousin is grown, so as to get 

 tall, straight lumber, for side sunlight 

 will surely cause low branching and 

 ruin the lumber. A tree can be tapped 

 for about three gallons of sap per year 

 without injury, and the tapping should 

 not be begun until the tree reaches 

 twelve inches in diameter. 



FAVORITE, RED MAPLE. 



Next to the sugar maple stands that 

 old favorite, the red maple, with its 

 habit of bending caressingly over the 

 streamside, its scarlet and purple glories 



