The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-04-24
The Sugar Maple.

The Massachusetts Ploughman says
We doubt if we can do our readers better
service in this centennial year than to give
all the facts we can N regard to the CON-
parative merits of the various kinds OF for
est trees, and to urge them to renewed &C.
tivity in planting and transplanting trees.
Whether regarded as permanent improve
lnent or as an investment for future profit,
the greater cultivation of fruit and forest
trees is to be commended but especially this
year, when we ought to take new de-
parture. How many of our descendants
will look upon the graceful forms and the
grateful shade of trees about the place, and
tell with pride how their fathers or their
grandathers planted those trees in 1876
Let as bear this idea in mind and act up
on it as if it meant business, this very spring
and before it is too late. Among the great
variety of trees from which selection is to
be made, we cannot forget the graceful and
useful sugar maple. Mr.. Sargent, in his
valuable paper on trees, in the secretary's
report just issued from the press says,
''1he sugar maple (Aver saccAariuns) no.
where becomes finer tree than in the west
ern portions of Massachusetts and when
we consider the value of its wood in the
the arts aud for fuel the value of its sap
when converted into sugar, Its rapid growth,
long l.fe, immunity from the attacks of in
sects, and its beauty and fitness for street
and ornamental planting, 1t must be ac-
knowledged that no tree deserves more gen.
eral cultivation in this state" The wood
of the sugar maple, which is hard, close
grained and smooth. is largely used in fur
niture making, cooperage, and in making
shoe lasts, for which it is preferred to that
of any other tree. Two million five hun
dred thousand pairs of lasts are consumed
annually in Massachusetts alone and if we
can judge of the future Of this business by
the past history, it will, before many years,
consume all the sugar-maple lumber the
country can produce. For fuel, the wood
of this tree is generally considered superior
to that OF any other, with the exception of
hickory. Mr.. Bull estimates its value at
only sixty, hickory being hundred, and
places before it in heat-giying qualities, no
less than twenty-five species Of North
American trees and shrubs. eetNg.f
The destruction of the sugar maple has
been go general in this state, that sugar
making, which formerly held an important
place in Massachusetts industry, has, dur
ing the last thirty years, diminished fully
one-half, and that, too, in the face of an
enormously increased natural production,
and of prices which have considerably more
than doubled during the last forty years.
There are, especially in the western part
of the state, many unproductive pastures,
now almost worthless, which would, if con-
verted into sugar orchards, yield in few
years handsome income.
In regard to the age at which it Is profit
able to commence drawing the sap for SUI
gar, authorities differ; but tree twenty
five years old will yield, on an average,
ten pounds Of sugar, and will continue to
be productive to this extent for fifty or
sixty years longer. One hundred and sixty
trees being allowed to the acre, the sugar
crop, for an orchard of that size, would
yield, at present prices, $273 annually; and
it must be remembered that, owing to the
season of the year at which sugar Is made,
no operation of the farm can be carried on
with so small an outlay for labor. The
trees, uninjured by the drawing off the sap
would increase in value for hundred years
and at any age, find ready sale, either
for fuel or for use in the arts. Its adapt
ability to all soils, except where stagnant
water stands, the rspidity of its growth, its
general thriftiness and undoubted beauty at
all seasons of the year, render the sugar
maple the most valuable of all the North
American trees for street and roadside
planting, and it should be more generally
used instead OF the American elm, which
has been planted for this purpose in Mass
achusetts almost to the exclusion of other
trees, although rarely thriving in such dry,
dusty situations.