70 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



weeks later, hut the yield was not to be 

 compared to that from the maple. 



The sugar-maple, with its clean, thrifty 

 look, graceful proportions, and soft gray, 

 corrugated bark, is always a beautiful 

 tree; but it is doubly so when in bloom. 

 The blossoms hang from long golden 

 threads; and a tree in full bloom looks as 

 though each twig were a festoon of silk- 

 en floss as bright in color as a canary's 

 wing. 



A MAPI.E SPRIG IN BLOOM — ONK-FOIRTH 

 NATURAL SIZE. 



Shortly after the appearance of my bee- 

 keeping article in the Cosmopolitan, in 

 1S95, Mr. J. E. Crane suggested that I 

 write another article about the honey re- 

 Sources of the country; illu.strating it with 

 photographs of the plants and trees while 

 in bloom. Since then I have been mak- 

 ing photographs with this object in view. 

 When it came to getting a photograph of 

 sugar-niaplc, I had no difficulty in decid- 

 ing upon what spot it should be taken. 

 Of course, there were plenty of maples 

 near by, a whole row of them right in 

 front of my home, but I wanted a typical 

 " sugar-bush," and I remembered a point 

 on the " river-road " to Flushing (a town 

 where a certain young lady lived years 

 ago) where the road passed through a 



piece of woods in which nearly all of the 

 trees were maples. The picture as taken 

 appears as a frontispiece to this i.ssue of 

 the Review. 



I rememljer the morning when a photo- 

 graphic friend ( is that a correct expres- 

 sion ? I'll risk it any wa\-) and m^-self 

 drove out to take the picture. The grass 

 was beginning to show green by the road- 

 side, farmers were busv with their plow- 

 ing, young lambs frisked by the side of 

 their sedate mothers, and children were 

 on their way to the school house on the 

 hill overlooking the river, while my 

 companion, whose mind is of a scientific, 

 philosophical, speculative bent, enjoyed 

 himself weaving theories to an apprecia- 

 tive listener. 



I once .showed this picture to a compos- 

 itor in the Review office, a young man 

 who had worked more or less in Flushing, 

 and he at once exclaimed: " Why I know 

 that piece of woods. That's Schram's 

 sugar-bush. It's about two miles this 

 side of Flushing. " 



The picture would lead one to believe 

 that the trees were in leaf; but such is not 

 the case. An occasional tree maj- have 

 a few leaves that are just beginning to 

 show, but the great mass of what appears 

 like foliage is simply bloom. 



Among my earliest recollections is that 

 of standing at the window of a log house 

 about which the forest stretched away for 

 miles, and seeing my father chop down 

 the sugar-maples. As the years went by, 

 the forest receded before the strokes of 

 this same relentless a.x; but I literally 

 grew up in the most excellent company 

 of these grand old trees, and learned how 

 to lay them low with the best of them; 

 although my first attempts caused my 

 father some amusement — he said that the 

 trees looked as though the beavers had 

 gnawed them down. By the way, chop- 

 ping is no mean accompli.shment. To 

 swing the ax around, away up above 

 your head, and bring it down with all of 

 your might, with ever increasing speed, 

 with all of its accumulated force, in ex- 

 actly the desired spot, to do this not only 



