Maple. 



what is called the Curled Maple/' famous for its beauty 

 throughout the United States. I have a chest of this wood, 

 the boards of which are about two feet, or rather more, 

 broad. Each board, if the chest were taken to pieces, is fit 

 for the making of a very beautiful table. Michaux says, 

 that, before mahogany became generally fashionable in 

 the United States, the finest furniture was made of Red 

 Flowering Maple, and that bedsteads are still made of it, 

 " which in richness and lustre exceed the finest mahogany. 

 "At Boston, some cabinet-makers saw them into plates 

 " for inlaying mahogany. But the most constant use of 

 " the Curl Maple is, the forming of stocks for fowling- 

 " pieces and rifles, which, to elegance and lightness, unite 

 " a strength resulting from the accidental direction of the 

 " fibre." I have received, this year, some gun-stocks of 

 this wood, and also some Broom Corn Brooms, the handles 

 of which are of this wood. A broom and a gun-stock may 

 be seen at my shop at Fleet-street, and, after seeing which, 

 the reader will want no further inducement to endeavour 

 to rear some of these trees ; but it must be again observ^ed^ 

 that the tree does not attain to any considerable size, except 

 in land approaching to a swamp or marsh. 



409. The third sort, or Sugar Maple, is sometimes called 

 a Rock Maple, or Hard Maple. It is a native of the colder 

 parts of North America, and is nowhere more abundant 

 than in Canada, New Brunswick, and in that miserable 

 country Nova Scotia, or New Scotland. It rises to the 

 height of from fifty to eighty feet, but does not attain a 

 very great size of trunk. The wood of this tree is used by 

 wheelwrights for axle-trees and spokes, and for various 

 other purposes of great and general utility. Besides this, 

 it produces most beautiful wood for cabinet use ; which 

 wood has been, and is, called by cabinet-makers, the 



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