SUGAR MAPLE 



The Sugar Maple makes up a great part of the native for- 

 est of New England and the middle states. In the race of 

 life it has scored two points ; it has learned to labor and to 

 wait. It can grow as tall as any of its forest companions 

 and it also knows how to prosper while young, in the shade. 

 Consequently, there is always a young maple in training 

 ready to take the place of any dead or dying tree. This 

 characteristic alone has enabled it to take precedence of 

 other trees. 



The leaves come out of the buds tawny and drooping, nor 

 are they able to hold themselves out firm until they have 

 attained nearly full size. 

 The flowers appear with 

 the leaves, are greenish 

 yellow and borne in clus- 

 ters on thread;like hairy 

 pedicels, two and a half 

 inches long. The fruit or 

 maple key ripens in early 

 autumn, and although it 

 appears to be fully de- 

 veloped, one rarely finds perfect seed in each of the two 

 divisions. 



This is the tree which produces the maple sugar of com- 

 merce. The testimony of early travellers shows that the 

 Indians, like the moose and the woodpecker, knew all about 

 the sweetness of the maple sap, but it is doubtful if they 

 were able to make maple sugar before the coming of the 

 Europeans ; however, the making of maple sugar was an 

 established industry among them during the last half of the 

 seventeenth centurj'. Sugar-making begins with the upward 

 flow of the crude sap in February or March and continues 

 until the buds begin to swell; when this occurs the sap will 

 not run freely and thoroughly changes in character. Trees 

 twenty or thirty years old are considered the most productive, 

 though there are instances of trees which have yielded sugar 

 every year for a century and are still vigorous and fruitful. 



69 



Key of Sugar Maple, r^'Jccr saccharun 



