The sap is collected in large kettles and boiled to syrup, or until it hardens into sugar. Just before it is ready to turn to sugar, it makes delicious “wax.” You pour the hot, thick syrup upon snow, and when it thickens into a sticky paste you eat it. It is better than any kind of candy—at least I think so.
A great deal of sugar is made in the New England States, where the maple grows abundantly, and in the early days the only sugar some of the people had was maple sugar.
Sometimes the sap of other trees, as birches or elms, is made into syrup, but none is as abundant or as good as the maple syrup.
The wood of the sugar maple is hard and is valuable for furniture and other uses. Indeed the wood of most of the maples is prized for furniture making.
The bird’s eye maple is a very pretty satiny wood dotted over with round spots that look a little like eyes. It comes from certain sugar maples whose wood is full of little knotty places.
The curled maple is also a pretty wood with wavy, shining lines made by irregular streaks in the wood. It is sometimes found in sugar maples and sometimes in other maples. Maple wood is light in color, and the bark of the tree is rather smooth. It is gray in most species, and often has white spots on it.
