THE MAPLES. q7 
facture of cabinet work, gearings of mills, and in naval 
architecture. 
Sugar made from the maple commands a much higher 
price than that made from sugar-cane; the syrup made 
from maple sap is ranked among syrups as A No. 1. 
The seeds are in pairs, and are united at the base, but 
only one of each pair is of any account, the other being 
worthless. The trees never produce seed two years in 
succession. 
The sugar maple will not thrive in poor, sandy soil, 
but requires almost any good tillage land. It will not 
live where the soil is saturated with water during the 
growing season. Bryant speaks of losing a number of 
sugar maples in the wet season of 1874, which had been 
growing several years upon land which, in an ordinary 
season was dry enough for cultivation. It continues to 
grow after the silver maple has arrived at maturity, so 
that a tree-grower should not be discouraged at its slow 
growth in its early stages. The black sugar maple, 
though formerly classed as a different tree from the su- 
gar maple, is now generally considered as a variety of 
sugar maple. Its general properties and its sap are the 
same; its general appearance is darker, and its leaves 
are larger, darker, and less scolloped than the sugar 
maple. 
THE SOFT MAPLE. 
The soft maple, in its wild state, is an uncouth and 
shaggy tree; when grown closely, in a cultivated grove, 
it is much improved in appearance and a most useful 
tree. I have seen numerous patches well shaped and 
eight and ten feet high at three and four years of age. 
In Nonoma County, Iowa, maple-trees, seven years old 
from the seed, were large enough to make three ten-foot 
rails, and an acre yielded three thousand rails. This 
timber is always in great demand for manufacturing 
purposes. Its growth in seven years equals that of the 
