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to the north of the sumac family, are the maple and buckeye 
families. The maples (Acer) are represented by a number 
of species. Perhaps the most important of these is the sugar, 
or rock, maple, a native of eastern North America, and the 
principal tree yielding maple sugar and syrup. The sap is 
usually collected from late in February to early in April; 
trees from twenty to thirty years old are considered the most 
productive, and a tree will usually yield in a season from 
four to six pounds of sugar, some giving less and others 
much more. This tree is often planted for shade along 
streets and in parks, its beautiful coloring in the fall en- 
hancing its value for this purpose. Its wood is largely used 
for making furniture, in ship-building, for tool-handles, and 
for shoe-lasts and pegs. Another tree here is the red maple, 
ranging throughout eastern North America; its wood is now 
used in large quantities for the manufacture of furniture of 
various kinds, for gun-stocks, etc. The striped, or goose- 
foot, maple, sometimes known also as moosewood, of north- 
eastern North America, is a pretty decorative species, espe- 
cially attractive on account of the beautiful marking of its 
bark. Two Old World representatives are the common 
European maple, of Europe and western Asia, and the syca- 
more maple, from Europe and the Orient. The sycamore 
maple is a valuable timber tree in Europe; its wood is used 
in the manufacture of musical instruments, spoons and other 
household utensils. From the southeastern United States 
comes the white-barked maple, also in the collection. The 
ash-leaved maple, or box elder, of eastern North America, 
is represented by several specimens. 
In the buckeye family is the common horse-chestnut (Aes- 
culus); for a long time the native country of this tree was 
unknown, and its home was ascribed by different authors to 
various lands; it has been pretty well established now that it 
is indigenous to the mountains of Greece. Another tree here 
is the fetid, or Ohio, buckeye, of the central United States ; 
its wood, as well as that of some of the other kinds of buck- 
eye, is manufactured into artificial limbs, for which purpose 
