SUGAR MAPLE. 
107 
the eastern and western branches of the Susquehannah ; west of the Moun- 
tains, in the country bordering on the rivers Alleghany, Monongahela, and 
Ohio. The farmers, after reserving a sufficient store for their own con- 
sumption, sell the residue to the shopkeepers in the small towns of the 
neighborhood at 8 cents a pound, by whom it is retailed at 11 cents. A 
great deal of sugar is also made in Upper Canada, on the Wabash, and 
near Michilimackinac. The Indians dispose of it to the commissioners of 
the North Western Company established at Montreal, for the use of the 
numerous agents who go out in their employ, in quest of furs, beyond Lake 
Superior. In Nova Scotia and the District of Maine, and on the highest 
mountains of Virginia and the Carolinas, where these trees are sufficiently 
common, the manufacture is less considerable, and probably six-sevenths 
of the inhabitants consume imported sugar. 
It has been stated, and doubtless correctly, that the northern parts of 
New York and Pennsylvania contain Maples enough to supply the whole 
consumption of the United States. But the annual produce by no means 
answers to this patriotic calculation. The trees grow upon excellent lands, 
which, by the influx of emigrants from the older settlements, and by the 
surprising increase of the population already established, are rapidly clear- 
ing ; so that in less, perhaps, than half a century, the Maples wdll be con- 
fined to exposures too steep for cultivation, and will afford no resource, 
except to the proprietor on whose domain they grow. At this period also, 
the wood will probably produce a greater and more ready profit than the 
sugar. It has been proposed to plant Sugar Maples in orchards or about 
the fields ; but would it not be more certainly advantageous to multiply 
the Apple tree, which grows in soils too dry to sustain the vegetation of 
the Maple? All that has been said on this subject must be considered as 
speculative merely, since, in the Eastern States, where information is gen- 
erally diffused, no enterprises of this nature have been undertaken, by 
which the importation of sugar might be diminished. 
Wild and domestic animals are inordinately fond of Maple juice, and 
break into enclosures to sate themselves with it. 
The details into which I have entered, concerning the Sugar Maple, 
furnish the means of estimating its importance, with reference both to its 
sap and to its wood. I have indicated the regions where it grows, and the 
soil in which it thrives; and I feel authorized in seriously recommending 
it for propagation in the north of Europe. Its sap and its wood are supe- 
rior to those of the Norway Maple and of the Sycamore, and in the same 
countries where these two species abound in the forests, its success would 
be most complete, and its cultivation most profitable. 
