46 FOREST TREES. 
The whole sowing is sometimes lost from this cause. 
This may be prevented by shading the rows with 
branches of trees, or by lightly covering them with 
straw or hay, to be removed when the danger is past. 
The trees will grow from one to two feet the first 
season. Under very favorable circumstances they 
sometimes double this. If designed for plantations 
they are best removed when one year old; or, if sown 
where they are to remain, they should be thinned at 
that age. With ordinary care the Silver Maple trans- 
plants as successfully as any other tree. 
2. Acer rubrum—Red Maple, Soft Maple. 
Leaves, three to five-lobed, unequally notched, 
whitish beneath; flowers red; petals, five, linear 
oblong; capsules, smooth ; seeds, red. 
The Red Maple is found mostly in swamps or moist 
lands from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. When 
full grown it is a large tree, sixty or seventy feet high, 
and two or three feet in diameter. It is often con- 
founded with the Silver Maple, which it somewhat 
resembles. The flowers, which appear two or three 
weeks before the leaves, are of a beautiful purple or 
deep red. The leaves change to different shades of 
red in the fall, even before frost. The wood is harder 
and finer grained than that of the Silver Maple. It 
is suitable for turning, and is applied to a variety of 
uses in the manufacture of furniture. The variety 
called Curled Maple, which is frequently in this 
species, is much used for the stocks of fowling pieces 
and rifles. 
