Maple sap

“ The most constant use of curled maple is for the stocks of fowling-pieces and rifles, as it affords toughness and strength combined with lightness and elegance. The inner bark is dusky red. On boiling, it yields a purple colour which with sulphate of iron affords a black dye. The wood is inferior to that of the preceding species in strength and as fuel. Sugar was made from the sap by the French Canadians, but the production is only half as great as that from the sugar maple. ”

“ It makes fine flooring and is used in skating rinks and for bowling alleys. Many pianos are made of maple. Wooden dishes and rolling pins are usually made from maple wood. During the spring of the year when the sap is flowing, the average mature maple tree will yield from fifteen to twenty gallons of sap in a period of three to four weeks. ”

“ Their [Pg 237] growth is rapid, and no tree combines more valuable properties. It is a beautiful shade-tree, it is excellent for fuel, it is much used for manufacturing purposes, its ashes are valuable for potash, and its sap is rich in sugar. There are twenty-seven species of the maple known, twelve of them are indigenous to this continent. All of these have a sacharine sap, but only two, to a degree sufficient for practical purposes, viz., Acer saccharinum or the common sugar-maple, and Acer nigrum or the black sugar-maple. ”

“ The samaras of the early flowering maple trees fall quite early in the summer, but there are other maples whose samaras remain on the trees until autumn.
Maples make beautiful shade trees, and some species grow to a large size. One of the largest and most beautiful of them is the sugar maple, which is not only valuable as a shade tree, but yields delicious maple syrup from its sap. ”

“ It does not shrink excessively, seasons without serious checking, and from it a very fine surface for polishing may be obtained. It is much used in places where it is exposed to wear, as in floors, butchers’ tables, etc., and to a considerable extent as a cabinet wood, and for interior finish. Maple does not resist decay as well as do some other woods.
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Sap is not considered a defect, and on account of its whiteness the sapwood is often preferred to the heartwood for many uses. ”

“ The sap, too, can be boiled down to sugar, but it is not nearly so rich as that of the proper sugar-maple. The wood, which is very light-colored with a tinge of rose in it, is often made into common furniture, as it takes a fine polish and is easy to work with. It is used, too, for building-purposes. The early-summer foliage of the red maple is of a beautiful yellow green, and the young leaves are very delicate and airy-looking; but the graceful tree is in such a hurry to display her gay autumn colors that she will often put on a scarlet or crimson streamer in July or August. ”

“ Spouts like these were made and used by settlers of upper New York about 1800 to gather the maple sap after the trees had been tapped. Gift of Frank E. Olmstead, Potsdam, New York.
84. Cedar Sap Spouts, about 1800. USNM 194893; 1952. Sap spouts for maple tree tapping, about 15 inches long and made of cedar. The maple syrup and sugar industry provided some income for frontier farms, as well as providing sugar for domestic use. Although maple syrup often sold at high prices, the industry never achieved major importance even in the localities where it flourished. ”

“ It has faithfully discharged the duties of a Maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a Maple, by a steady growth for so many months, never having gone gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved Maples are already settled in life somewhere. ”

“ In former times no woman took part in the maple-sugar manufacture. The men used first to tap the trees, and then boil the sap over wood fires that they would build in the neighborhood of the sugar bush, as the maple grove is called. ”

“ They all, except the shrubby mountain maple, yield a portion of sweet sap, though none is so liberal in the supply as the common sugar maple. The very largest trees of this kind in our neighborhood are said to be about three feet in diameter, and those of forest growth attain to a great height, from sixty to eighty feet ”

“ Like the curled maple, it is used for inlaying mahogany. It is much prized for bedsteads, writing-desks, shoe-lasts, &c. The wood forms excellent fuel and charcoal, while the ashes are rich in alkaline principles, furnishing a large proportion of the potash exported from Boston and New York. Sugar is principally extracted from this species, the sap being boiled and the syrup when reduced to a proper consistence runs into moulds to form cakes. Trees growing in low and moist situations afford the most sap but least sugar. ”

“ With large ladles the sugar-makers stirred the thickening juice of the maple; pails of sap were collected from the trees and brought in by the young people, while here and there some sturdy fellow was seen first hacking a cut in a tree, and afterwards boring with an auger a hole, into which he introduced a piece of hollow cane, by which the sap was to be drained off. About half a dozen men had felled a noble yellow poplar, and sawed its great trunk into many pieces, which, after being split, they were scooping into troughs to be placed under the cane-cocks, to receive the maple juice. ”

“ Maple trees are only tapped once in two years, so that they may have time to recover from the loss of sap, and thrive and grow into fine healthy trees, for the tapping of the trees by no means kills them. There are some maples in New York State that have been producing sugar for nearly one hundred years, and show no sign of decay, though they are still tapped when their season comes round. ”

“ In the northern states of America, sugar in large quantities is obtained from some species of maple, principally the sugar maple and swamp maple of Canada, by boring the stem, collecting the ascending sap which flows from the wound, and evaporating away its watery portions. ”

“ They hain't no sugar in 'em,' said Zack, among his other practical hints. 'The older the tree, the richer the sap. This 'ere sugar bush is as fine as I'd wish to tap: mostly hard maple, an' the right age. Soft maple don't make nothing but molasses, hardly—them with whitish skin ”

“ Among the North American species there are several that grow to splendid dimensions in their native forest. One of the most distinct is the red maple (A. rubrum) , a beautiful object in spring when it bears flowers profusely, which, in some varieties, are of a charming red colour. There are a few specimens in England of the well-known sugar maple (A. saccharum) , but it seldom thrives in this country, though it has been frequently tried since its introduction, according to Loudon, in 1735. ”

“ It is the maples that first light up our woods with these flickering fires. No country of the old world has trees that make such a wonderful color show as our maples. Their leaves are never of one tint, but are mottled and shaded, from lemon yellow to orange, flame-red and crimson. You know the thin-leafed red maple sifts sunlight. To look up through one, in the fall, is like looking through a splendid stained glass window of a church.
The oaks show no yellow, and the leaves are of a strong solid color. ”

“ The red maple (Acer rubrus) , another species, is very bright when the leaves are changing, but it gives no sugar."
"Then I will not let it grow in my garden, nurse!"
"It is good for other purposes, my dear. The settlers use the bark dyeing wool; and a jet black ink can be made from it, by boiling down the bark with a bit of copperas, in an iron vessel; so you see it is useful. The bright red flowers of this tree look very pretty in the spring; it grows best by the water-side, and some call it 'the swamp-maple.'"
This was all Mrs. Frazer could tell Lady Mary about the maple-trees. ”

“ How is one to live, with a crack in his sides?”
But the maple seed was wrong. He did [320] not die. An unsuspected, mysterious strength sustained him. His roots found food in the brown earth, and he lifted up a slender stem into the pure sunlight and warm air. Through spring, summer, autumn and winter, year after year, this lived and grew, until the tiny sapling had become a beautiful tree, with spreading branches. ”

“ But it has long been wooed by the air and the water, by moss and lichen; the years have lent it beauty, softened its curves, rounded its angles and brought it the richness of age.
Boulders are sometimes clothed with a larger growth. I have in mind one, from whose apex springs a maple at least half a century old. It lies at the head of a swamp, and in autumn this tree is always one of the first to turn. In August when the tupelos show signs of change, the maple is already glowing with color. ”

“ The flowers appear in the spring before the leaves, in dense clusters, and are of a greenish-yellow color. The fruit ripens in late spring. It consists of a pair of winged seeds or “keys” with wings 1 to 2 inches long on slender, flexible, threadlike stems about an inch long.
The wood is soft, weak, even-textured, rather brittle, easily worked, and decays readily when exposed. It is considerably used for boxboards, furniture, veneers and fuel.
The red maple, or swamp maple, Acer rubrum L., has leaves deeply lobed with the lobes sharply toothed. The autumn color is deep red. ”

“ Who does not know of the maples that are all around us? Yet who has seen the commonest of them bloom in very early spring, or watched the course of the peculiar winged seed-pods or "keys" that follow the flowers? The white or "silver" maple of streets or roadsides, the soft maple of the woods, is one of the most familiar of American trees. Its rapid and vigorous growth endears it to the man who is in a hurry for shade, and its sturdy limbs are the joy of the tree-butcher who "trims" them short in later years. ”

“ The sumach and the alder abound everywhere. But the glossy leaves of the maple are more numerous than any others, if we include the whole family, and with the exception of the western or ash-leaved maple, they all grow here, from the fine sugar maple to the dwarf mountain maple: including them all, then, perhaps they number two for one of any other deciduous tree found here. They sow themselves very freely; in the spring one finds the little seedling maples coming up everywhere. With the exception of the chestnut, the nut trees
are not so very common ”

“ Clean-cut, refined, strong, and healthy in every detail, the silver maple is a thing of beauty and might truly be called the acme of perfection in tree life. Its name is derived from the fact that the under side of the leaf is silvery white. The upper side being dark green gives a beautiful effect when the wind stirs the foliage, which as a whole has the grace and drooping effect of the American elm. ”

“ Of the broad-leaved, deciduous trees which grow near the coast, the white maple (Acer macrophyllum) is the most beautiful and useful. It grows and decays rapidly,—the mature tree attaining to the height of eighty feet, and a diameter of six feet; then decaying from the centre outward, lets its branches die and fall off, w T hile from the root other new trunks spring up and attain a considerable size in four or five years. The wood has a beautiful grain, and is valuable for cabinet manufactures, taking a high polish. The foliage is handsome, being very broad and of a light green. ”

“ The red maple is a lover of swamps. It thrives, however, on hillsides, if the soil be moist; and is planted widely in parks and along village streets. In beauty it excels all other maples. In early spring its swelling buds glow like garnets on the brown twigs (see illustrations, pages 198-199) . The opening flowers have red petals, and the first leaves, which accompany the early bloom, are red. In May the dainty flat keys, in clusters on their long, flexible stems, are as red as a cock's comb, and beautiful against the bright green of the new foliage. ”

“ It weighs about 30 ℔ per cub. ft.
There are several varieties of maple growing in Canada and the United States, but the one in most common use is the sugar maple, also called rock maple, which grows freely in the districts around the Great Lakes. The wood is fine-grained, frequently with a beautiful wavy figure, yellowish white to light brown in colour; it is very hard, tough and durable. Birds’-eye maple has a peculiar curly grain, and is much in request for ornamental joinery. ”

“ It is the poet of the forest, with its wide-spreading, drooping branches, its beautiful foliage, and grace in every aspect of its stately form.
As a street-tree the Maple is unexcelled. It is of rapid growth, entirely hardy anywhere at the north, requires very little attention in the way of pruning, is never troubled by insects, and has the merit of great cleanliness. It is equally valuable for the lawn. In fall, it changes its summer- [Pg 42] green for purest gold, and is a thing of beauty until it loses its last leaf. ”

“ They are frequently as tall and thick, as the best of our fir trees. The seed stays on them till spring, but in the middle of April the pods open and shed the seeds. Query, Whether they are not ripe before that time, and consequently sooner fit for sowing? This American maple is remarkable for its quick growth, in which it exceeds all other trees. There are such numbers of them on the low meadows between Philadelphia and the ferry at Gloucester, on both sides of the road, that in summer time you go as it were through a shady walk. ”