SUGAR MAPLE 
The Sugar Maple makes up a great part of the native for- 
est of New England and the middie states. In the race of 
life it has scored two points; it has learned to labor and to 
wait. It can grow as tall as any of its forest companions 
and it also knows how to prosper while young, in the shade. 
Consequently, there is always a young maple in training 
ready to take the place of any dead or dying tree. This 
characteristic alone has enabled it to take precedence of 
other trees. 
The leaves come out of the buds tawny and drooping, nor 
are they able to hold themselves out firm until they have 
attained nearly full size. 
The flowers appear with 
the leaves, are greenish 
yellow and borne in clus- 
ters on thread-like hairy 
pedicels, two and a half 
inches long. The fruit or 
maple key ripens in early 
autumn, and although it 
appears to be fully de- 
veloped, one rarely finds perfect seed in each of the two 
divisions. 
This is the tree which produces the maple sugar of com- 
merce. The testimony of early travellers shows that the 
Indians, like the moose and the woodpecker, knew all about 
the sweetness of the maple sap, but it is doubtful if they 
were able to make maple sugar before the coming of the 
Europeans ; however, the making of maple sugar was an 
established industry among them during the last half of the 
seventeenth century. Sugar-making begins with the upward 
flow of the crude sap in February or March and continues 
until the buds begin to swell; when this occurs the sap will 
not run freely and thoroughly changes in character. Trees 
twenty or thirty years old are considered the most productive, 
though there are instances of trees which have yielded sugar 
every year for a century and are still vigorous and fruitful. 
69 
Key of Sugar Maple, «Acer saccharum. 
