AMERICAN FOREST TREES 429 



The uses of sugar maple are nearly universal, where a hard, white 

 wood is wanted. Many large trees contain little colored heart, and trees 

 are generally fifty years old before they have any. More maple is worked 

 into flooring than into any other one commodity. Mills in Michigan 

 alone, in 1910, made 185,611,662 feet of maple flooring. It was shipped 

 to practically every civilized country in the world. Many builders 

 consider it the best wooden floor that can be laid. In a test made in a 

 large store in Philadelphia some years ago, a marble floor wore through 

 sooner than maple, when the same wear was on both. 



Nearly all kinds and classes of furniture have places for maple, 

 either as outside material or inside frames, drawer bottoms, or partitions. 

 Vehicle manufacturers employ it for heavy axles, running gear, parts of 

 automobiles, sleigh runners and frames, and hand sleds. It is made into 

 handles from gimlet sizes to cant hooks. Gymnasium apparatus owes 

 much to the whiteness, smoothness, and strength of maple. Wooden- 

 ware from toothpicks to ironing boards; from butcher blocks to butter 

 molds; from door knobs to die blocks, is dependent on maple for some of 

 its best material. It is largely used for boxes, in both solid and veneer 

 form. Only two woods are now employed in larger amounts for veneers 

 hi the United States than maple. They are red gum and yellow pine. 



Maple is one of the three woods most largely employed hi hard- 

 wood distillation in this country; beech and birch are the others. 

 Maple sugar is a product of this tree almost exclusively, and the business 

 is large. In some parts of New England it is claimed that a grove is 

 worth more for sugar than the land is worth for agriculture. 



SILVER MAPLE (Acer saccharinuni) is generally called soft maple by lumber- 

 men. It is known also as white maple, river maple, silver-leaved maple, swamp 

 maple, and water maple. The sinuouses of the leaves are very deep. The lighter 

 colorof its bark and the pale green of the leaves distinguish soft maple at a glance from 

 sugar maple when both are in full leaf. The greenish -yellow flowers open in early 

 spring, and the seeds are ripe in April or May, depending on the season and region. 

 The seeds have large wings and fly well. They germinate in a few days after they 

 find suitable soil, and before the end of the summer the seedlings have grown several 

 leaves. The vigor thus displayed continues until the tree is large. It is a fast grower, 

 and for that reason has been extensively planted as a street and park tree. The 

 wisdom of doing so is doubtful, for this maple throws out long limbs which are often 

 broken by wind. The trunk is subject to disease, and a row of old soft maples nearly 

 always presents a ragged, unkept, neglected appearance. As to beauty of form and 

 crown, there is little comparison between it and the planted sugar maple. Soft 

 maples in forests range fnm seventy-five to 120 feet in height, and two to four in 

 diameter; that is, they attain about the same size as sugar maples. The species 

 covers a million square miles, practically the whole country east of the Mississippi, 

 some west of that river, and most of eastern Canada. 



It is a useful wood for many purposes. The custom of mixing this with sugar 

 maple makes it impossible to clearly separate the two woods afterwards. It is the 



