The White or Canoe Birch is most remarkable for the beautiful thin sheets of bark which it affords, from which the Indian canoe is constructed. It also makes excellent covering for a tent. In some parts of the northern regions it is said to attain a diameter of six or seven feet.
The White Birch possesses "in an eminent degree the lightness and airiness of the Birch family, spreading out its glistening leaves on the ends of a very slender and often pencil spray, with an indescribable softness. So that Coleridge might have called it as he did the corresponding European species,
"Most beautiful
Of forest trees—the lady of the woods."
THE MAPLE-TREE.
This family is very numerous. "Nearly forty species are known, of which ten belong to the United States." 'The climate of New England is peculiarly favorable to their growth, as is shown by the perfection to which several of the most valuable species attain.' The Red Maple is most remarkable for the varying color of its leaves, which greatly beautify forest scenery. The leaves begin to turn in the latter part of summer and during the earlier part of autumn, from green to a deep crimson or scarlet. The forests of no other country present so beautiful a variety of coloring as our own; 'even corresponding climates with the same families bear no comparison.' The difference is said to depend "on the greater transparency of our atmosphere, and consequently greater intensity of the light; for the same cause which renders a much larger number of stars visible by night, and which clothes our flowering plants with more numerous flowers, and those of deeper, richer tints, gives somewhat of tropical splendor to our really colder parallels of latitude."
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." It is said that the wood of this tree may be easily distinguished from the Red, or the River Maple, by pouring a few drops of sulphate of iron upon it. This wood turns greenish; that of the two former turns to a deep blue.
"In Massachusetts, between five and six hundred thousand pounds of sugar are annually made from the juice of the Rock Maple, valued at about eight cents a pound," yielding a revenue of about forty-four to fifty thousand dollars per annum. Of the sap, "the average quantity to a tree is from twelve to twenty-four gallons each season. In some instances it is much greater. A tree in Bernardstown, about six feet in diameter, favorably situated, produced in one instance a barrel of sap in twenty-four hours." "Dr. Rush cites an instance of twenty pounds and one ounce of sugar having been made within nine days, in 1789, from a single tree in Montgomery county, New York." In another instance, thirty-three pounds are said to have been produced from one tree in one season. A gentleman from Leverett informs me that in one season he obtained from one tree one hundred and seventy-five gallons of sap, which, if of average strength, would have made forty-three pounds of sugar.
The following remarks upon the Sugar Maple of Maine, from the "Third Annual Report" of Dr. Jackson's geological surveys in this state, will be read with interest, suggesting profitable hints to some. "The Acer Saccharinum, or Sugar Maple, is one of the most luxuriant and beautiful native forest trees in Maine, and abounds wherever the soil is of good quality. Its ascending sap is very rich in sugar, which is very readily obtained by means of a tap, bored with an augur half an inch in diameter, into the sap-wood of the tree, the sap being collected in the spring of the year, when it first begins to ascend, and before the foliage puts forth. It is customary to heap snow around the roots or stumps of the trees, to prevent their putting forth their leaves so soon as they otherwise would, for the juices of the tree begin to be elaborated as soon as the foliage is developed, and will not run.