SECRETARY'S REPORT. 149 



Next to the pines and oaks, there seems to be no tree in the 

 country of more extensive celebrity than the sugar maple. 

 The extraordinary neatness of its appearance, and the beauty 

 of its foliage, which in summer is of the liveliest green, and in 

 the autumn assumes the richest and most glowing red, are suffi- 

 cient to recommend it as a beautiful ornament in our gardens 

 and avenues. The branches are disposed with much regularity, 

 though without stiffness, and so arranged that their usual out- 

 line is'an elegant oval. It is to this tree we are chiefly in- 

 debted for the beautiful curled and bird's-eye maple employed 

 in cabinet work, which rivals, if it be not admitted to surpass, in 

 brilliancy and richness, the finest woods of tropical climates. 

 But the sugar maple derives its chief reputation, as well as its 

 name, from the qualities of its sap. A large portion of the 

 sugar used in many parts of the country, the western districts 

 of Vermont and New York, for instance, is derived from the 

 maple. Michaux remarked, nearly fifty yeai»s since, that at 

 least ten millions of pounds of this sugar were then annually 

 made in the United States. This quantity is far less than 

 might be procured from the same source in case of necessity. 

 According to Dr. Rush, the northern part of New York and 

 Pennsylvania alone contained at the same period thirty mil- 

 lions of sugar maple trees ; and if we suppose each tree to 

 yield on an average from two to four pounds of sugar annually, 

 the product would go far towards supplying the whole con- 

 sumption of the country. 



The maple sugar can be made of a quality equal to the best 

 imported. It is, however, in a brown state that it is gen- 

 erally used; and, except in the districts where it is produced, it 



is a white oak which I saw, in 183G, on the estate of the late James Wadsworth, Esq., 

 of Genesee. The tree is from twenty-four to twenty-seven feet in circumference at 

 the smallest part of the trunk. Its age cannot he less* than five hundred years ; 

 and it must, therefore, have been a majestic tree at the time when Columbus dis- 

 covered the western world. It appeared to be in a vigorous and healthy condi- 

 tion, and bore on its exterior no marks whatever of decay. It is by no means 

 improbable that this tree exceeds in size many, both in Europe and elsewhere, 

 which are recorded as of greater diameter ; for, in the measurement of large trees, 

 it is of great importance to ascertain at what part of the trunk the measurement 

 was taken. Every one must have remarked the difference between the bulk 

 of such trees at the surface of the "round and at a few feet above. 



