COMMON MAPLE. 261 



" A maple throne, raised higher than the ground, 

 Received the Trojan chief." 



Though considerably smaller than my brother, who is 

 called by distinction the greater maple, chief of our house, 

 and growing on sub-alpine regions in Cumberland and 

 Westmoreland, and high mountainous sheep pastures, while 

 my lowly birth-place is in thickets and hedges, I have 

 yet some important purposes to fulfil. I make excellent 

 gun-stocks, and screws for cider-presses; turners greatly 

 estimate my wood, and vessels are produced, by their craft, 

 so thin as to transmit light. Nor is it to my reproach 

 that I am somewhat of a dwarf, for rarely does the farmer 

 admit of my rising higher than brushwood ; yet when 

 allowed to grow freely, as at Knowle, in Kent, one of my 

 brethren measured twelve or fourteen feet in height. But 

 why, you may perhaps wish to know, are we thus restricted 

 from attaining our natural altitude? Because we form 

 rapidly a close hedge, and afford plenty of firewood to the 

 farmer. 



