PRACTICAL PAPERS—THE MAPLE FAMILY, 
291 
Maple is so abundant that it can be readily gathered with good 
profit at $1.00 per bushel; each bushel of seed will produce from 
nine to sixteen hundred trees of from 9 to 18 inches high the 
first year, at a cost for seed, planting and culture, not to ex¬ 
ceed twenty-five cents per thousand. The summer of 1870, so 
terribly dry that every crop suffered, and many were ruined, 
still gave a good crop of Ash Leaf Maple seedlings, rather un¬ 
der si^ed, but healthy and straight. Five thousand yearling 
trees may be properly planted upon an acre about 2x4 feet, at 
a cost of $3.00, which, with $1.25 the cost of raising the first 
year and $2.00 for pulling and handling, makes a total of $6.- 
25 for an acre stocked with trees. 
Three years culture as good as is given by good farmers to 
their corn crop, and pruning at a expense of about $2.00 per 
year, will put the grove beyond further call for labor or ex¬ 
pense till the time for the harvest of fuel and sugar comes 
round. To tablulate these estimates, the account will stand as 
follows, leaving out of account the cost of land or rental value: 
One acre of Asli Leaf Maple, one year old, planted about 
2x4, costs.. $6 25 
Three years pruning, at $2.00. 6 00 
Three years culture at $2.75. 8 25 
$20 50 
CREDIT SIDE. 
At five years old 2500 poles 12 feet long and 
3 inches in diameter at the base will make 
if corded up, 8 cords of wood, which is 
worth anywhere in southern Wisconsin, $2.50 
over cost of cutting and hauling. $20 00 
At ten years of age, trees 734 i nc h es * n dia- 
meter are ready to tap, and will yield with 
8 days of good sugar weather, 2 gallons per 
tree, or 5,000 gallons of sap of 3 per cent., 
sugar, or 1200 lb sugar worth 10 cts., per Sb. $120 00 . 
Deduct cost of working, 10 days labor for two 
hands, and interest upon apparatus. 40 00 . 
- 80 00 
$100 00 
(Fuel costs nothing, for the grove supplies it from the underlings which 
are better cut out.) 
At ten years old, then, this acre has paid back at the rate of 
eight dollars a year over all expenses, except rental and inter- 
