THE MAPLE FAMILY 
leans a bit toward its Oregon cousin. Having used its 
graces to induce people to plant it along city streets, it 
fails to make good. It weakens and blows down. The 
vain red maple, though hard to get started in streets and 
parks, has a sturdy constitution and makes good in the 
long run. 
The box elder belongs to the maple family, though its 
leaf is shaped like that of the ash tree. It is another of 
those accommodating plants that will grow almost any¬ 
where. It was much planted by settlers in the prairie 
country. But it, too, has soft wood for a body and does 
not last. 
The Norway maple, borrowed from the Old World, an¬ 
other hardwood relative, makes a beautiful and sturdy 
tree for street planting and is coming to be among the 
most popular of all shade trees. 
The sugar maple is the stern and reliable member of 
the family. It also ranks among the handsomest of 
American shade trees. It has a sturdy hardwood body 
that no storm can break down and that will survive 
through the centuries. In addition to this it yields sap 
for maple sugar. It can be bled of twenty-five gallons of 
sap for sugar-making, one spring after another, and never 
seems to feel the loss. It is a long stretch from the weak- 
spined maple of the western woods to this stern and com¬ 
petent sister of the eastern hillsides. 
159 
