18 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



elm, and box-elder trees. The Black Sugar Maple is a very pretty variety. 

 It prevails more in the southern than the northern part of the state. Its 

 bark is black, specked with white, contrasting prettily with its densely 

 green and tufted foliage. 



white maple, A. dasycarpum. 



Also called the Soft Silver and River Maple. Indigenous to nearly every 

 part of the state, but rare in the northwestern portion; abundant on the 

 alluvial bottoms of the upper Mississippi and its tributaries, and on other 

 northeastern waters. It blooms early; flowers greenish ; destitute of 

 petals; fruit woolly when young, soon smooth, developing to oval-shaped 

 seeds with great diverging wings. Ripen in June. Trunk low and 

 stalky; many limbed; divergent, spacious head, opening well to the sun- 

 light. Its foliage is magnificent. Leaves deeply five-lobed; silvery white 

 and downy beneath; densely green above. Note them as they tremble in 

 the wind, aflame with their brilliant white and green a life-moving pict- 

 ure of light and shade. Its sap is saccharine, yielding but half the sugar 

 product of the Hard Maple measure for measure as it flows from the 

 trees. The wood is white and fine-grained, soft and light; serves well in 

 cabinet making, and is growing more and more in favor; makes the best of 

 charcoal. Rightly managed is a success on our prairies, but needs the 

 protection of other trees, for its limbs are apt to split down in our heavy 

 winds. Pruning of this tree should be on its laterals, carefully preserving 

 the central stem. 



RED FLOWERING OR SWAMP MAPLE, A. rubrum. 



Abounding through the east part of the state, about Redwood Palls, in 

 Winona county and White Earth reservation; extends west to Mead-Port- 

 age on the Dawson route, north of Lake Superior. It clings to the borders 

 of running streams and not infrequently to the miry swamps, and yet grows 

 on the elevated ground with the oaks and butternuts. It is the earliest to 

 blossom, unfolding about a fortnight before the leaves. The blossoms are 

 a deep red and so are the twigs. Unlike the other maples, they are with- 

 out stalks to divide from at the extremity of the branches. The eaves are 

 three to five-lobed, whitish underneath, irregular-toothed. Fruit also 

 reddish, slightly spreading wings. When young the bark is smooth, 

 marked with white blotches; when it has attained twenty-five or thirty 

 feet high, the bark becomes brown and chapped. Sugar is manufactured 

 from its sap. The heart of the wood projects into the sappy portions in 

 the form of an irregular star, making it very pretty. The wood in general 

 is harder than that of the White Maple, is finer and closer grained, sus 

 ceptible of a glossy surface. Nothing is more beautiful when polished and 

 varnished. It is used in manufacturing the staves and spokes of spinning 

 wheels, saddle-trees, yokes, shovels, domestic woodenware. In some very 

 old trees the grain is undulated, known as Curly Maple, often having vary- 

 ing shades that are very beautiful. The cellular tissue of this maple is a dull 

 red. When boiled it turns to a purplish color; then apply a solution of 

 sulphate of iron, and it is a dark blue. With alum it is used in dyeing 



