﻿32 BULLETIN 12, U. S. DEPAKTMENT OF AGKICULTXJRE. 



not in large quantities. It is employed in the manufacture of picnic 

 plates, pie plates, butter dishes, washboards, small handles, kitchen 

 and pantry utensils, and ironing boards ; and is said to possess quali- 

 ties fitting it in a high degree for wooden shoes, which are now made 

 in considerable numbers in this country. It is light, impervious to 

 water, and is not difficult to work. 



SUGAR MAPLE. 



(Acer saccharum.) 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. 



Weight of dry wood. — 43.08 pounds per cubic foot (Sargent). 



Specific gravity. — 0.6912 (Sargent). 



Ash. — 0.54 per cent weight of dry wood (Sargent). 



Fuel value. — 92 per cent that of white oak (Sargent). 



Breaking strength (modulus of rupture). — 16,000 pounds per square inch, or 

 125 per cent that of white oak (Sargent). 



Factor of stiffness (modulus of elasticity). — 2,019,000 pounds per square inch. 

 or 153 per cent that of white oak (Sargent). 



Wood heavy, hard, strong, tough, narrow-ringed, compact, susceptible of a 

 fine polish, color light brown, tinged with red, sapwood lighter. 



Height, 75 to 120 feet; diameter, li to 4 feet. 



SUPPLY. 



Sugar maple is known in different regions by different names, 

 among them being hard maple, which is more general among lumber- 

 men and manufacturers" than sugar maple. The wood is little if 

 any harder than several of the other species of maple in this coun- 

 try. Another name is sugar tree, common among producers of maple 

 sugar. It is often known as rock maple, though a number of other 

 maples are known by the same name. In some parts of the South it 

 is called black maple, or simply maple. 



The census of 1909 gave the cut of maple in the United States as 

 1,166,604,000 board feet, but exactly how much of this was sugar 

 maple is not possible to determine, since in compiling the statistics 

 all maples were classed together. It is reasonably certain, however, 

 that it forms three-fourths of the reported output of maple in this 

 country. Nearly one-half is produced by Michigan, and in quantity 

 of cut that State is followed in the order named by Wisconsin, Penn- 

 sylvania, New York, and West Virginia. In all, 34 States reported 

 a cut of some species of maple in 1909, but some of them, notably 

 those in the far Southwest, did not produce any sugar maple, and 

 those in the South produced very little. 



The commercial range of sugar maple is roughly confined by the 

 international boundary line from New Brunswick to Minnesota, and 

 southward to North Carolina and Kentucky ; but cutting is done here 

 and there outside of these boundaries. The total remaining stand 



