THE MAPLES. 75 
hundred maples will thus usually occupy as many acres, 
often interspersed with beech, basswood, or hickory. 
The labor of gathering the sap over a larger area is 
much increased, while the production of sugar is dimin- 
ished. I do not know that any one has practically test- 
ed the plan, but it seems to me that a regularly planted 
sugar-maple grove on good land, but not too high-priced, 
ought to pay at least as well as the average of farming 
operations. Many farms are already scarce of wood, 
and to grow two or three acres of sugar-maple orchard 
would kill two birds with one stone. To accomplish a 
third object, the sugar bush ought to be planted in such 
shape and position as to protect the farm from the prev- 
alent destructive winter winds. A grove of trees on the 
west side of every grain farm would often be worth the 
use of the land simply as a shelter-belt to protect winter 
grain. As forests are being cleared off, many farmers 
are learning for the first time the importance and neces- 
sity of these shelter-belts of trees to protect their crops. 
But to the plan. For convenience in sap-gathering the 
sugar orchard should be planted in as compact a form as 
possible, and in regular rows ten feet apart each way. 
This will give, if there are no vacancies, four hundred 
and thirty trees per acre. But when young the trees 
will grow better if planted closer, say in rows five feet 
apart, and cultivated for two or three years. Once 
or twice scarifying the surface during the summer to 
destroy weeds will answer if you can get two or three 
year old trees to start with. Often trees ten or fifteen 
feet high, from new-growth woods, can be bought at 
small cost, and when this is possible it is always prefer- 
able. A young tree taken from a dense growth in the 
woods, where it has been stunted and smothered, will 
grow much more rapidly when planted where it can 
have room to spread, if it is well cultivated and pruned. 
These unpruned masses of young trees in a forest, each 
choking the other, and neither half living, are the bug- 
