The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-03-11
The Destruction Of the Sugar Maple.


One OF the leading maple-sugar makers of
Hampshire county claims that but very few
productions, in the entire system OF New
England agriculture, realize to the farmer so
large profit as the manufacture of that COM
modify. As prices have averaged for the the
last ten years, it is certainly feature of home
industry well worthy of consideration. Many
of the farmers on the hills, who own and
utilize large sugar orchards, have become con-
vinced by practical experience that it is one
of their very best paying harvests, tobacco
alone yielding, perhaps, larger net profit.
Nature has appointed this harvest at season
when the farmer can accomplish but little
other labor to advantage, and, unless he Is
engaged in this occupation, his time and
efforts will yield him but little remuneration;
yet, without taking this point into account,
| even did the work come at any other time in
| the year, it would pay grandly. Maple syrup
and sugar hold a high price in the market,
| and without doubt will sustain their present
rates, with probabilities Of advance in the
| future.
| In the face of these facts, it is certainly
| somewhat matter of mystery why large
proportion of our farmers should manifest
| such an utter indifference to the preservation
and perpetuity of the sugar maple. In no
| other part of the country does it flourish so
| naturally ard vigorously as among the Green
Mountains, and wherever its delicious sweets
are extracted it repays the owner three-fold
for tie labor. Still our maple groves and for
ests are rapidly disappearing, and, at the
| present rate Of decrease, another half GEN.
| tury will witness their almost utter annihila-
! ton.
The process OF making maple sugar is evil
| IDENTIFY destined to become one OF the 'lost
| arts, unless some special interposition stays
this work of destruction. The demand for
broom-handles and other articles Of utility,
| into which this wood Is converted, is insatia-
BILE. Thousands of our grand old emerald
crowned monarchs of the forests are sacri-
feed to this demand annually, and, of course,
the aggregate amount of sugar manufactured
must decrease in ratio with the decrease OF
the material from which it is derived. 1t will
soon become luxury in the market, COM
manding price that must teach every shrewd
and sensible owner of maple orchards the ex-
| pediency, even in pecuniary sense of pre-.
| serving this beautiful feature of our New
| England landscape.
BY all means, then, let our maple forests
| escape the invasion of that dire energy and
eupidity which are SO rapidly and recklessly
dismantling our lovely hills and valleys of
their primitive grandeur and luxur;ence.
| The maple grove, once destroyed, cannot
be replaced. Its reproduction Is the slow
lingering work Of time; and it behooves the
lumberman to remember this important fact
when he puts the AK to its root. The per-
| petuity OF the delicious luxury obtained from
the sugar maple is not the only incentive to
the preservation of that tree. In pictorial
sense alone, with its wealth of unparalleled
| greenness and yerdurc in summer, and It's
marvellous mosaic of leafy glory in autumn,
it is worthy Of woodland immortaiiIy'-
Springfield Republican.