Dear Sir—I understand that you have been directing your attention to the Sugar Maple, in the belief that it will be found an advantageous substitute for the several varieties of poplars, as a useful as well as ornamental tree; and that you are desirous of obtaining any information respecting its culture, or properties, that I may be able to communicate.
I have for some time been convinced that none of the poplars would prove a beneficial kind of timber to our farmers, from their disposition to extend their roots, and propagate suckers at a great distance, and from the offensive cotton which is produced by the Athenian and Georgia varieties—and I have made many experiments in the hope of discovering a tree, valuable for its timber, and clean and ornamental in its foliage, which could be propagated by seedlings. Among others, I planted the Sugar Maple and am happy to find it one of the hardiest and handsomest trees, even on the light sandy soil around my house; capable of withstanding the severity of the drought of the last and preceding summers, the most intense that are recollected in our country. Of eighteen trees I lost but two, while the native chesnuts, raised from the nut, all perished; and little better success was experienced in a variety of trees planted on the same ground, such as the pine, sycamore, larch, spruce, &c. The American elm is thought to be a hardy tree, but with me it proved less so than the sugar maple. It is generally believed that all the varieties of the maple require a damp soil: this is the case with several of them, but the acer saccharum flourishes in a loamy wheat soil, in many districts of our western and northern country. The facility by which it may be propagated from the seed, renders its diffusion through our country, to any extent, very easy and cheap.
Few of our native trees are more useful for fuel, and the manufacture of potash; and as the means of affording a great and almost inexhaustible supply of sugar, it becomes an object of great importance, even to the farmer, who is desirous of transmitting a valuable inheritance to his children. It is my intention to plant this tree in the place of a line of the Athenian poplars, which I have been obliged to cut down after eight years luxuriant growth, from their injurious effect on the adjoining fields, by the extension of their roots to sixty and seventy feet, throwing up a little forest of suckers.
Treatise on Agriculture.
SECT. III.
Theory of Vegetation.
3d. Of air, and its agency in vegetation:
A seed deprived of air will not germinate; and a plant placed under an exhausted receiver, will soon perish. Even in a close and badly ventilated garden, vegetables indicate their situation; they are sickly in appearance, and vapid in taste.—These facts sufficiently shew the general utility of air to vegetation: but this air is not now the simple and elementary body, that the ancient chymist described it to be. Priestly first,[1] and Lavoisier after him, analyzed it, and found, that when pure, it consisted of about 70 parts of azote, 27 of oxygen, and 2 of carbonic acid. In its ordinary (or impure) state, it is loaded with foreign and light bodies; such as mineral, animal and vegetable vapours, the seeds of plants, and the eggs of insects, &c. Is it to this aggregate, that vegetation owes the services rendered to it by air? And if not, to how many, and to which, of its regular constituents, are we to ascribe them? This inquiry will form the subject of the present article.
All vegetables in a state of decomposition, give azote; and some of them (cabbages, radishes, &c.) give it in great quantity. This abundance, combined with the fact, that vegetation is always vigorous in the neighbourhood of dead animal matter, led to the opinion, that azote contributed largely to the growth of plants: but experiments, more exactly made and often repeated, disprove this opinion, and shew that in any quantity it is unnecessary, and that in a certain proportion it is fatal to vegetation.