186 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK I. but if you will lop it for the fire, let it be done in January ; and indeed 

 "^""^^"^ it is observed to be of noxious influence to the subnascent plants of other 

 kinds, by reason of a clammy dew, which it sheds upon them ; and there- 

 fore they should not be indulged in pollards or spreading trees, but to 

 thicken underwoods and copses. The timber is far superior to Beech 



the waters of the Ohio. These trees are generally found mixed with the Beech, Fagus Ferru- 

 ginea ; Hemlock, Pinus abies ; White and Water Ash, Fraiimis Americana ; the Cucumber- 

 tree, Afagwo/za acz^^nzna^a ; Linden, Tilia Americana ; Aspen, Populus tremula ; Butter Nut, 

 Jiiglans alba {oblonga) ; and Wild Cherry'tree, Prunus Firginiana of Linnxus. They 

 sometimes appear in groves, covering five or six acres in a body, but they are more commonly 

 interspersed with some or all of the forest-trees which have been mentioned. From thirty lo 

 lifty trees are generally found upon an acre of ground. They grow only in the richest soils, 

 and frequently in stony ground. Springs of the purest water abound in their neighbourhood. 

 They are, when fully grown, as tall as the white and black Oaks, and from two to three feet 

 in diameter*. They put forth a beautiful white blossom in the spring before they show a 

 single leaf. The colour of the blossom distinguishes them from the Acer Rubrum, or the 

 common Maple, which affords a blossom of a red colour. The wood of the Sugar Maple- 

 tree is extremely inflammable, and is preferred upon that account by hunters and surveyors 

 for fire-wood. Its small branches are so much impregnated with sugar, as lo afford support 

 to the cattle, horses, and sheep of the first settlers during the winter, before they are able to 

 cultivate forage for that purpose. Its ashes afford a great quantity of pot-ash, exceeded by 

 few, or perhaps by none, of the trees that grow in the woods of the United States. The tree 

 is supposed to arrive at its full growth in the woods in twenty years. It is not injured by 

 tapping; on the contrary, the oflener it is tapped, the more s}rup is obtained from it. In 

 this respect it follows a law of animal secretion. A single tree had not only survived, but 

 flourished 2L[iev forty-ttwo tappings in the same number of years. The effects of a yearly 

 discharge of sap from the tree, in improving and increasing the sap, is demonstrated from 

 the superior excellence of those trees which have been perforated in an hundred places, by 

 a small wood-pecker which feeds upon the sap. The trees, after having been wounded in 

 this way, distil the remains of their juice on the ground, and afterwards acquire a black 

 colour. The sap of these trees is much sweeter to the taste than that which is obtained from 

 trees which have not been previously wounded, and it affords more sugar. From twenty- 

 three gallons and one quart of sap, procured in twenty hours from only two of these dark- 

 coloured trees, Arthur Noble, Esq. of the State of New York, obtained four pounds and 

 thirteen ounces of good grained sugar. A tree of an ordinary size yields in a good season 

 from twenty to thirty gallons of sap, from which are made from five to six pounds of sugar. 

 To this there are sometimes remarkable exceptions. Samuel L,owe, Esq. a justice of peace 

 in Montgomery county, in the State of New York, informed Arthur Noble, Esq that he had 

 made twenty pounds and one ounce of sugar between the 14th and 23d of April, in the year 



• Baron La Hontan, in his voyage to North America, gives the followir)g account of the Maple-tree in 

 Canada, After describing the black Cherry-tree, some of which he says are as tall as the loftiest oaks, 

 and as big as a hogshead, he adds, "the Maple-tree is much of the same height and bulk. It bears no 

 resemblance to that sort we have in Europe." 



