76 TREES AND TREE-PLANTING. 
bear which deters hundreds from planting trees. Farm- 
ers see how small a growth these make, and conclude 
that forest-growing is a very slow and unprofitable busi- 
ness. Yet when these same trees are planted by the 
road-side, often foot-bound with grass, their growth is 
much more rapid. I have in my mind a line of noble 
maples, planted seventeen years ago this spring by a 
public road, which have for two or three years been large 
enough to tap. They were got from the woods, and 
were the size of whipstalks when planted. Young trees 
of equal size, then, left in the same woods uncared for, 
are not half their size. Yet these trees have stood in 
grass most of the time since planted. Cultivated in or- 
chards, with room enough to grow, and yet so close as 
to keep down the grass, their growth would probably 
have been even larger than it is. The principal objec- 
tion to the maple for timber is the facility with which 
it decays when exposed to the weather. For fuel, the 
sugar maple is the American tree par excellence, not 
second to hickory, which is claimed by many Eastern 
people to be superior to all others for heat-producing 
qualities; it forms a dense, broad-based, round-topped, 
frequently egg-shaped head of deep-green foliage, clean, 
and more free from insects of all kinds than any other 
deciduous tree we know. It justly claims a place at the 
head of American ornamental trees. Being hardy, it is 
easily transplanted in large sizes, and bears cutting back 
very patiently. We have known of large trees, three to 
four inches in diameter, with the tops all cut off, being 
moved from northern Wisconsin to the prairies of Dli- 
nois, and being successfully transplanted. This tree is 
by far the most valuable of its species; its wood is 
hard, heavy, strong, close and fine grained ; has a silky 
lustre when polished. The curled maple and bird’s- 
eye maple are the same as the sugar maple, the curl 
or bird’s-eye being caused by the undulations and in- 
flections of the fibre. Its chief uses are in the manu- 
