THE MAPLE. 345 
country. Up to the present time, few deciduous trees are 
found better adapted for standing singly in a rough and ex- 
posed situation. Regardless of the prevailing winds, it gene- 
rally rises with a large and well-balanced head, valuable in 
affording shelter for cattle; and, from its yielding a deep 
shade, it has been recommended as suitable for being planted 
on the south side of the dairy, in order to equalize the tem- 
perature during the heat of summer. It is also well adapted 
to withstand the injurious effects of the sea spray. 
This species is easily propagated by seeds. It blossoms 
in spring, and the seeds become ripe early in the following 
autumn, when they should be collected and mixed up in a pit 
of dry earth or sand, and sown during the succeeding spring. 
When sown in autumn, immediately on being gathered, the 
young plants generally appear too early in the season io 
escape the influence of frost, and are consequently destroyed. 
The ground for seed should be dry and weil pulverized, and 
only moderately rich. Very fertile, moist soil creates an 
excess of growth, so that the seedling plants do not mature 
their wood to resist the effects of frost,—a circumstance which 
is only likely to occur to plants of one year’s growth. One 
bushel of seed is sufficient to sow a bed four feet broad and 
twenty-four yards in length. The covering of the seeds 
should be half an inch deep. 
Seedlings of one year’s growth should be transplanted into 
nursery lines two feet apart, and the plants six or eight 
inches asunder in the linez:, where, in two years, they are 
generally from three to four feet high, and suitable for forest 
planting. Although the sycamore will grow im soil of very 
opposite qualities, yet a deep, soft, dry soil is that most con- 
genial to its development, and in such it is generally twenty 
feet high at the age of ten years; but instances are known of 
the tree attaining the height of forty feet in less than twenty 
years. 
It comes into leaf early in the season, when its foliage pre- 
sents a lively green, particularly attractive in the month of 
May; but from the circumstance of the leaves exuding a 
