SUGAR MAPLE. 
103 
capsules attain their full size six weeks earlier. Externally, they appear 
equally perfect, but I have constantly found one of them empty. The 
fruit is matured only once in two or three years. 
The wood when cut is white, but after being wrought and exposed for 
some time to the light, it takes a rosy tinge. Its grain is fine and close, 
and when polished it has a silken lustre. It is very strong and sufficiently 
heavy, but wants the property of durability, for which the Chesnut and 
the Oak are so highly esteemed. When exposed to moisture it soon 
decays, and for this reason it is neglected in civil and naval architecture. 
In Vermont, New Hampshire, the District of Maine, and further north, 
where the Oak is not plentiful, this timber is substituted for it, in prefer- 
ence to the Beech, the Birch, and the Elm. When perfectly seasoned, 
which requires two or three years, it is used by wheelwrights for axle-trees 
and spokes, and for lining the runners of common sleds. It is also em- 
ployed, as well as the Red-flowering Maple, in the Manufacture of Wind- 
sor chairs. In the country, where the houses are wholly of wood. Sugar 
Maple timber is admitted into the frame ; and in the District of Maine, it 
is preferred to the Beech for the keels of vessels, as it furnishes longer 
pieces : with the Beech and the Yellow Pine, it forms also the lower frame, 
which is always in the water. 
This wood exhibits two accidental forms in the arrangement of the fibre, 
of which cabinet-makers take advantage for obtaining beautiful articles of 
furniture. The first consists in undulations like those of the curled Maple, 
the second, which takes place in old trees which are still sound, and 
which appears to arise from an inflexion of the fibre from the circumfer- 
ence toward the centre, produces spots of half a line in diameter, some- 
times contiguous, and sometimes several lines apart. The more numerous 
the spots, the more beautiful and the more esteemed is the wood : this 
variety is called Bird’s-eye Maple. Like the Curled Maple, it is used for 
inlaying Mahogany. Bedsteads are made of it, and portable writing desks, 
which are elegant and highly prized. To obtain the finest effect, the log 
should be sawn in a direction as nearly as possible parallel to the con- 
centric circles. 
When cut at the proper season, the Sugar Maple forms excellent fuel. 
It is exported from the District of Maine for the consumption of Boston, 
and is equally esteemed with the Hickory. The opinion entertained of it ' 
in this respect, in the North of America, accords with the interesting expe- 
riments of Mr. Hartig on the comparative heat afforded by different species 
of European wood, from which it results, that the Sycamore, Acer pseudo- 
platanuSj is superior to every other. 
The ashes of the Sugar Maple are rich in the alkaline principle, and it 
may be confidently asserted, that they furnish four-fifths of the potash ex- 
ported to Europe from Boston and New York. 
