ON THE CULTURE OF THE SUGAR MAPLE.
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.