This valuable tree seems to be equally well adapted for ornament
and for profit. No tree, of the deciduous class, is more elegant
in appearance, and but few grow more rapidly, or live to a greater
length of years. Its shade is but little injurious to the growths of
grain, and still less to those of grass. For fuel it is inferiour to
no wood whatever. It may be cultivated in mowing and pasture lands,
probably as closely as at the rate of 20 trees on an acre, without
any essential injury to the pasture, or growth of the meadow. The
quantity of sugar to be made yearly from the sap of the tree must,
however, depend on its size, and on the rapidity of its growth. The
quicker its growth, the more sap may be extracted from it, because
the alburnum (sap wood) is always in the greatest proportion where
the tree is most flourishing.
The rapidity of the growth of young trees, when transplanted,
depends very essentially on the manner of performing that operation.
The greater the depth and superficial extent, to which the ground
is loosened, round where a young tree is to be set, the more rapid
will be its growth when placed in this bed of loosened earth. Let
one young tree, for instance, be set in a hole dug only 18 inches
in diameter, and a foot in depth, and let another be set in a hole
dug 6 feet wide, and 2 feet deep, and the latter will, for a number
of succeeding years, grow with more than double the rapidity of the
former. In order, then, to give the young maples a rapid start, so
as to have them soon fitted for affording considerable supplies of
sap, let due attention be paid to this particular. Let the holes
for the trees be dug, say, a foot in depth, and five in diameter,
and then spade or loosen the ground at the bottoms to the depth of 8
or 10 inches more before the young trees are to be set in.
In addition to planting maples in grounds intended as permanent
pastures, and mowing grounds, each side of the highway, leading
through any farm, might be profitably occupied and adorned with
these trees, set at the distance of about every two rods. Suppose
also that the farm house were placed in a spacious court yard, say
of an acre in extent, and this planted with a suitable number of
maples, could any thing confer more of an air of pleasantness and
elegance to the mansion?
I shall not attempt any computation of the probable profits to
be derived from this proposed improvement in rural affairs, but
doubtless the gain would be very considerable. Every farmer
might, in this way, stock his lands with a permanent growth that
would afford him a plentiful supply of sugar, that would at times
afford him additions of fuel, and that would eminently serve as an
embellishment of his domain, and all these essential advantages
would be derived without any essential diminution of the usual
products of his lands.
It is probable that if the young trees be planted in the manner just
mentioned, they would attain a size fit for tapping in about 15
years, after which they would probably afford yearly supplies of sap
for more than a century, if tapped in the manner least calculated to
injure them. This is to be performed, not by cutting large gashes
in them with an axe, but by boring one or more holes in them, with
a small auger, to the depth of about 3 inches, or at all events not
beyond the extent of the sap wood. The holes should be made every
year in different parts of the trees, sometimes higher and sometimes
lower, and after the sap has ceased running for the season, they
should be filled with pieces of durable wood, drove in, in order
that the wounds may be soon healed over by the subsequent growth of
the trees.
J. N.
[_Plough Boy_.