Wood is light in colour, similar to that of the silver maple, hard, strong, and brittle.
Sycamore Maple.—Although frequently planted in this country as a shade tree it is, like the Norway, imported from Europe.
Moosewood, Mountain Maple, and Box Elder are three small American maples which can hardly be placed among timber trees, except possibly the last. Box elder or ash-leaved maple has the distinction of having a compound leaf.
Its wood is soft and of more value to the pulp maker than the lumberman. It is very hardy and has been used on the Western prairies, where more particular trees do not thrive.
THE OAKS
Perhaps as a family this group of trees is more uniformly valuable than any other found in North America.
They represent all that is the best among trees, being strong, hardy, long-lived, and valuable as timber.
There are oaks in Europe a thousand years old, but of course we have no records that go back so far.
It is a difficult tree to kill, because, when cut down or burned, a large number of healthy shoots grow from the stump or roots, and make a rapid second growth. The bark of all oaks contains tannin, and in the past our principal supply came from these trees. The old-fashioned method was to fell the tree, strip off the bark and leave the wood on the ground to decay. Oak lumber is now so valuable that this waste has been largely stopped.
White Oak Group.—The oaks all bear simple leaves which vary greatly. They may be divided into two groups. The white oak group all bear leaves with rounded lobes, no bristles, and ripen their acorns the first fall after blossoming. They rarely bear acorns before the age of twenty years. The second group has pointed lobes, each lobe ending in a bristle and do not ripen their acorns until the end of the second season.