Tramping a short distance farther the Inspector directed the attention of the boys to a broad, spreading symmetrical tree fully a hundred feet high and with a trunk more than three feet in diameter. The bark was smooth and ash colored and the foliage purplish. It ranks among the handsomest trees of the American forest and every boy identified it at once as a beech, of the Fagus genus of trees. It is so common that I am sure you are all familiar with it. Possibly you are unaware that the roots do not descend deeply into the soil but extend to a considerable distance close under the surface. The beech is a favorite, and several beautiful varieties are cultivated, some displaying purple, silver, and other colored foliage. I recall a beech whose leaves in the autumn, after being touched by frost, were so vivid and blood red, that they resembled a huge cone of flaming fire when seen among the differently tinted foliage.
One of the chief uses of the beech from the viewpoint of boys is to furnish an admirable surface upon which to carve their names with their jack-knives. I cannot compute the number of beech trunks in the woods of my boyhood home which display my initials. Only the other day I came across the bark, now bulging, contorted and overgrown, upon which I broke the blade of my new knife, when I was so young that I didn’t know any better than to form two of the letters backward. Moreover, a few feet above my name was that of my grandfather, which he cut into the bark when he was a youngster fully sixty years before.
“The beech,” remarked Uncle Elk, “furnishes fire wood, though my preference is apple wood, followed next by hickory, sugar maple and beech.”
Uncle Elk was too wise to weary his young friends with much scientific description. As he strolled forward, he made his talk more general and asked fewer questions. He reminded them of the excellent appearance of the white elm, which often grows to a height of a hundred feet or more. It is not valuable, however, because its reddish brown, coarse wood soon rots near the ground. A peculiarity of the sycamore, which often attains a stature of a hundred and fifty feet, is that it sheds its bark as well as its leaves.
The black locust is another tree with which I am sure you are all familiar. You have seen rows of them lining the highways and growing about old lawns. The timber is close grained and tough and good for planking vessels. The mealy fruit is sweet, and we used to try to persuade ourselves that we liked it, but I don’t think any of us boys ever wholly succeeded.
When boiled and fermented the juice forms an intoxicating drink resembling beer.
I was always fond of the red and water or swamp maples. The sap from them when boiled down furnishes us the most delicious syrup and sugar in the world. When we seek the sugar, however, it is from the variety known by that name. The manufacture of maple sugar is a leading industry during the spring months in many sections, especially in Vermont, and some parts of New York and other states.
Have you ever taken a hand in the making of maple sugar? If so, you will never forget its delights. In March, when the first signs of thaw appear, you bore only a little way with an auger into the juicy wood, when the sap comes bubbling down the small wooden spout driven into the opening, and is caught in the trough or kettle waiting below. As these fill up the sweet fluid is carried to a huge iron kettle suspended over a roaring fire, and poured into the vessel. It boils steadily away, but the supply is kept up, the steam diffusing a most fragrant odor through the surrounding atmosphere. The sap slowly grows thicker as the watery part is given off in vapor, until it granulates and syrup and sugar result.
After the thick syrup is poured out of the big kettle there is always a considerable quantity left clinging to the interior. Balancing themselves over the edge of the iron reservoir, the heads of the boys used to disappear with only their feet showing while they scraped off the saccharine coating within and ate and ate until nature protested and we had perforce to cease, but were soon ready to resume our feast at the banquet of the gods.