Maple

“ This was what the maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane—one day when there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress with a gay little leaf set here and there in its shining folds. ”

“ Above the hazel rose two straight, joyous maple-trees with gayly indented leaves, red stems and long dangling clusters of green fruit. Behind the maples came the forest—a green evenly rounded slope, where birds went out and in as elves in a grasshill. ”

“ Know'st thou the land of the broad maple tree?
The noblest and best of his fellows is he:
He grows in the meadow, the grove and the wood;
His trunk is for timber, his sap is for food;
His boughs are for fire in the cold winter days;
His leaves are for shade from the summer sun's blaze.
Know'st thou the land of the maple benign,
The land of the elm and the oak and the pine? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When I bring in a maple stick to put on my fire, I feel like caressing it a little. Its fiber is as white as a lily, and nearly as sweet-scented. It is such a tractable, satisfactory wood to handle—a clean, docile, wholesome tree; burning without snapping or sputtering, easily worked up into stovewood, fine of grain, hard of texture, stately as a forest tree, comely and clean as a shade tree, glorious in autumn, a fountain of coolness in summer, sugar in its veins, gold in its foliage, warmth in its fibers, and health in it the year round. ”

“ The elm with its graceful and weeping top, the rich varieties of the maple, most of the noble oaks of the American forest, with the broad-leaved linden known in the parlance of the country as the basswood, mingled their uppermost branches, forming one broad and seemingly interminable carpet of foliage which stretched away towards the setting sun, until it bounded the horizon, by blending with the clouds, as the waves and the sky meet at the base of the vault of heaven. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the spring advances those pretty crimson leaves become dark green above and a light green on the under-side, and they lose the soft down which covered them, but even when fully out they are never so large as those of the Sycamore. When autumn draws near, with its cold winds and frosty nights, the Field Maple leaves change colour once more and become brilliant yellow; you will see them shining in the hedgerows like a bush of gold. ”

“ Even in the middle of winter the red maple is true to its distinctive characteristic of color, and one marvels to find so much red in its buds and twigs. The gray trunks are in fine contrast, and accentuate the color, and the curving tips of the branches, with their delicate twigs and graceful outlines, give the trees great beauty. ”

“ Very common in cultivation are the Japanese maples—miniature trees, bred and cultivated for centuries, wonderful in the variations in form and coloring of their leaves. Tiny maple trees in pots are often very old. Some leaves are mere skeletons.
The Japanese people are worshippers of beauty and they delight particularly in garden shows. In the autumn, when the maples have reached perfection, the populace turns out in holiday attire to celebrate a grand national fête. A sort of æsthetic jubilee it is, like the spring jubilee of the cherry blossom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A purely American species, and one of as much economic importance as any leaf-dropping tree, is the sugar maple, known also as rock maple—one designation because we can get sweetness from its sap, the other because of the hardness of its wood. The sugar maples of New England, to me, are more individual and almost more essentially beautiful than the famed elms. No saccharine life-blood is drawn from the elm; therefore its elegance is considered. I notice that we seldom think much of beauty when it attaches to something we can eat! ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Ash-Leaved Maple. The ash-leaved maple is a leaf very common in our parks. It has no resemblance to other maple leaves, yet it bears the unmistakable maple key,—“By their fruits ye shall know them.” It is therefore a maple.
The box elder, or ash-leaved maple, is interesting because it is our only maple having a compound leaf; that is, a leaf stem with several distinct leaflets. Compound leaves are very common (notice the hickory leaf and the horse-chestnut) , but not on maples, and our ash-leaved maple is a curiosity. It delights in swampy places, but grows almost anywhere. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We will do what we can, though, to become acquainted with the rock maple, that we may be able to recognize it when we see it. When young, it is a beautiful, neat and shapely tree with a rich, full leafy head of a great variety of forms. It is the largest and strongest of the maples, and gives the best shade. It can be distinguished from the other members of the family by its leaves, in which the notch between the lobes is round instead of being sharp, and also by their appearing at the same time with the blossoms, which are of a yellowish-green color. ”

“ I said that strength, greenness, a full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.
I think he understood me—or rather he understood that I, with the exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that, he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees himself ”

“ Then, when the maples have burst out into color, showing like great bonfires along the hills, there is indeed a feast for the eye. A maple before your windows in October, when the sun shines upon it, will make up for a good deal of the light it has excluded ”

“ The other species of maple of less importance are the soft maple (A. dasycarpum) , having a wide range, and attaining its greatest development in the valley of the lower Ohio, and the red maple (A. rubrum) , also ranging from New Brunswick westward to the Lake of the Woods and south to Texas, and being largest and most abundant in the central portion of the Mississippi valley. The oaks range over the entire eastern forested region from Maine to Florida, and west nearly as far as arboreal vegetation extends. The number of species is large. ”

“ Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.
They always took their holidays in autumn.
Once they came on a maple in a glade,
Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,
And every leaf of foliage she'd worn
Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.
But its age kept them from considering this one.
Twenty-five years ago at Maple's naming
It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling
The next cow might have licked up out at pasture. ”

“ The maple also springs in abundance, and I suppose there must be a proportionate number of nightingales in consequence, if the old saying is true, that these birds love the maple better than any other tree. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The black maple is so like the sugar maple that they are easily confused, but its stout branchlets are orange-colored, the leaves are smooth and green on both sides, scantly toothed, and they droop as if their stems were too weak to hold up the blades. The keys spread more widely than those of the sugar maple.
The black maple is the sugar maple of South Dakota and Iowa. It becomes rarer as one goes east. It is an admirable lumber tree, as well as a noble street and shade tree. ”

“ Of the Maple family we may briefly notice only one more, the Rock Maple, "which in all respects is the most remarkable tree of the family." While young, it is justly admired for its ornamental beauties as a shrub. When in a state of maturity, "for the purposes of art, no native wood possesses more beauty or a greater variety of appearance."
"In the forest the Rock Maple often attains great height, and produces a large quantity of timber. A tree in Blandford, which was four feet through at base and one hundred and eight feet high, yielded seven cords and a half of wood." ”

“ The maple is indigenous to the forests of America, and wherever there has been opportunity for a second growth, this tree attains to a considerable size much sooner than might be imagined. In the course of ten or fifteen years the maple becomes of a size to produce sugar. ”

“ The great maple at Eagles Mere is the king of the bit of primeval forest yet remaining to that mountain rest spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well able to defy future centuries. ”

“ The campestris, or Common Maple, which is a native of Britain, grows in thickets and hedges, and flowers in the month of June.—The wood of this species is much used by turners, being far superior to that of the beech. When it abounds with knots, it is greatly esteemed by joiners, for the purpose of inlaying. On account of its lightness, maple-wood is also frequently employed for musical instruments: being remarkably white, it was formerly converted into tables, and other articles of domestic furniture, particularly cups; which last may be turned so thin, as to transmit light. ”

“ As maple was the sacred wood in the Roman ritual, maple only was used for the holy fire. The size of the pieces used and their shape was also a matter of immemorial ordinance. Each piece was about a cubit long, about the length of the forearm of an average adult, measured from elbow to finger-tips. Each piece must be wedge-shaped, with the bark on the rounded side and the other two sides meeting at a sharp edge where had been the heart of the trunk or branch from which it had been cut. Each piece must have been clean cleft with a strong sweep of the axe. ”

“ The ash her purple drops forgivingly
And sadly, breaking not the general hush;
The maple-swamps glow like a sunset sea,
Each leaf a ripple with its separate flush;
75All round the wood's edge creeps the skirting blaze
Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy days,
Ere the rain falls, the cautious farmer burns his brush. ”

“ 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. ”