18 



land be in sod and is grazed by stock. To renew such a grove it is 

 better to bring about a reproduction than to plant a new stand. To 

 accomplish this stock must be excluded soon after which thousands 

 of maple seedlings will be noticed coming up. While these are quite 

 young roadways for sap gathering should be laid out and made smooth. 

 Unsound maples and seedlings and sapplings of other sorts ought 

 to be removed. In a few years the strongest of the sapplings will 

 assert themselves and these should be encouraged by lopping off the 

 tops of the weaker ones. When the preserved saplings have reached 



Fig. 10. A GALA DAY IN A SUGAR BUSH AT ALGONQUIN PARK 



a height of 9 or 10 feet cattle may be let in to overcome the younger 

 brush which if left would soon make it difficult to collect the sap. 



In all this work one has to exercise judgment having in view a 

 highly productive sugar orchard ever increasing in value from the stand- 

 point of the timber alone. Maple lumber has long been a valuable com- 

 moditythat has doubled in price within little more than a decade. It 

 is only reasonable to expect that ten years hence will see it much more valu- 

 able than at the present time. For this reason reforesting with maple 

 should prove a very remunerative enterprise yielding in a few years 

 an annual crop of sugar and a heritage in timber of no mean value. 



