﻿USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS. 47 



The largest demand for wood ashes in this country has always been 

 for fertilizers. It is claimed that the Massachusetts Indians taught 

 the Plymouth colonists the value of ashes in growing- crops. 1 



There is no account of the beginning of sugar making from the 

 sap of maple. The Indians from Carolina to Canada knew the art 

 before white men came. 2 



The first settlers made sugar as soon as they came in contact with 

 the sugar maple. They imitated the Indians at first, though their 

 tools and apparatus were better. 



There is wide difference in the quantity of sugar which single 

 trees yield in a season, the range being from 2 to 40 pounds, the 

 average, however, not being much above the lower figure. 3 



It is usually considered that from 16 to 20 quarts of sap make a 

 pound of sugar. This article is now generally regarded as a luxury, 

 if it can be had pure, but it was formerly not much used by persons 

 who could afford to buy West Indies cane sugar. In 1791 it was 

 published, with evident patriotic pride, that Thomas Jefferson used 

 maple sugar exclusively, and that to assure a future supply at his 

 farm near Charlottesville, Va., he had planted a grove of maple trees.* 



Exact figures on the sugar and sirup output are difficult to obtain, 

 because many farmers do not make returns to the collectors of sta- 

 tistics, and, further, because much of the product is adulterated before 

 it reaches market. In many cases maple sugar is used to flavor sirup 

 or sugar made from cane or beets. Hickory bark also has been used 

 as flavoring material. Adulterations of maple sugar and sirup have 

 been many and widespread. 



BLACK MAPLE. 



(Acer saccharum nigra.) 



The black maple is a form of sugar maple which is found from 

 New England to South Dakota, eastern Kansas, Arkansas, and west 

 of the Allegheny Mountains to northern Alabama and Mississippi. 

 It is the same as sugar maple in weight, but contains more ash. It 

 is weaker and less stiff than the other wood, and in these two proper- 

 ties its greatest differences from the former species are seen. In some 

 regions it is scarce; in others it exceeds in quantity the associated 

 species of maple. It is the only sugar maple in South Dakota. It is 



1 " Fertilizers," Edward B. Voorhees. 



2 The Indians of Dakota and of Ohio were reported as sugar makers. A place in Ohio, 

 20 miles from the Muskingum Ford, was known as " sugar cabins " long before white 

 people had settled the region. See " The Journals of George Croghan," published in 

 vol. 1 of " Early Western Travels," by Reuben C. Thwaite. 



3 " Sugar Maple and the Sugar Bush," A. J. Cook. 



* " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. 3, p. 78. 



