Probably the best known and most common trees, especially in towns and
cities. Most of them grow quickly and therefore become valuable as
shade trees. They do not make the most permanent trees, however, and
should be planted in alternation with oaks, or other long-lived trees,
for permanent shade.
The seeds of all maples are winged, which helps their distribution over
large areas, in the same manner as the seeds of evergreens.
_Sugar or Rock Maple._--The most valuable timber tree of the group, its
wood being heavy, hard, strong, and close-grained. Very light in colour
and valuable for flooring and interior finish, furniture, tool handles,
and bench tops.
It grows throughout the Eastern states, but not in all soils. Very
rapid in growth, so much so that in the dense forest stands, when a
portion of the woods has been cut down, the young saplings cannot
always withstand the wind pressure and are blown down. Reaches a height
in the forest of a hundred and twenty feet, but in the open is broader
and more symmetrical. Too much cannot be said in praise of this tree.
Its shade is dense and its autumn colouring superb. The sap yields
maple syrup and sugar, and, finally, after it has done its work and is
cut down, its wood yields lumber of the highest value, while the limbs
make excellent firewood.
The process of making maple sugar was learned, historians tell us, from
the Indians. This is probably why the process was for two or three
centuries very crude. Holes are bored in the tree in the late winter,
as soon as the sap is brought to life by the sun, usually in March, but
the time depends upon the weather. Spigots are placed in the holes and
pails hung under them to catch the sap. When full, they are emptied
into large kettles or boilers over a fire, and the sap simply boiled
down to the proper consistency.
As the lumberman is making heavy inroads into the maple groves or
forests, the price of maple sugar is likely to continue going up, until
real maple sugar will be only a memory, unless we wake up from our
dream of unlimited resources to the real facts and do something.
_Silver Maple, White Maple, Soft Maple._--A very common shade tree in
our towns and cities. Its natural section is along the Mississippi,
where it becomes a great tree, often a hundred feet high; but it is so
easily adaptable to new conditions, grows so quickly from seed, and
will stand so much hard usage that it has been very popular. There are
many better trees, but this is cheap and quick growing, and in our
hurried American life we build very often for the immediate future and
forget the next generation.
Its foliage, when not blackened and spoiled by the smoke of the city,
is a beautiful dark green above, and light silvery green below. The
winged seeds ripen in June, may be planted before July 1st, and will
produce young trees nearly a foot high before frost of the same
season. Wood not as hard as rock maple, but strong, close-grained and
brittle. Used to some extent in cabinet work. The winter buds are very
precocious and start into life at the first sign of spring.
_Red or Swamp Maple._--Found in wet places naturally, but it makes a
large and satisfactory shade tree in heavy upland soil. The leaf form
is somewhat like that of the silver maple, but smaller.
Seeds ripen before summer. The flowers are red, the leaf stems are
red, and the foliage is not only the most brilliant red of all our
autumn colours, but it is the first to give notice by its change of the
approach of winter. It is easy to see where it got its name.
Wood is light in colour, similar to that of the silver maple, hard,
strong, and brittle.
_Sycamore Maple._--Although frequently planted in this country as a
shade tree it is, like the Norway, imported from Europe.
_Moosewood, Mountain Maple, and Box Elder_ are three small American
maples which can hardly be placed among timber trees, except possibly
the last. Box elder or ash-leaved maple has the distinction of having a
compound leaf.
Its wood is soft and of more value to the pulp maker than the
lumberman. It is very hardy and has been used on the Western prairies,
where more particular trees do not thrive.