SUGAR MAPLE
(Acer Saccharum)

The makers of sugar in the North call this tree sugar maple, but lumbermen and users of wood nearly always speak of it as hard maple. All maples—and there are nearly a dozen—are tolerably hard, and sugar may be obtained from most of them; but this species is hardest of all, and the most prolific sugar maker, hence the two names are appropriate. It is often called rock maple, which name refers to its hard wood. In some regions the name most heard is sugar tree.

Its range extends from Newfoundland through Canada to Lake of the Woods, southward through Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Arkansas to Texas. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi, but it is not abundant in the South. Its best development is found from New England across the northern states to Michigan. Some very fine sugar maple is found in fertile valleys and on slopes among the Appalachian ranges from Pennsylvania southward. The largest lumber cut of maple is in the following states, ranging in the order given: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Vermont. Since the different species of maple are not reported separately in statistics, there is no way of determining how much each of the maples supplies. It is well known that sugar maple greatly exceeds all others.

At its best this tree may exceed a height of 100 feet and a diameter of three; but the average for mature timber in the best part of its range is sixty or eighty feet in height, and two in diameter. The flowers appear with the leaves in early spring, but the seeds do not ripen until autumn, when they are bright red. They are winged, and usually two grow together, but they sometimes become detached, in which case each is capable of flight with its single wing. It is characteristic of maple seeds to whirl rapidly while falling, and if a moderate wind is blowing, they glide considerable distances. They usually fly farther than the seeds of ash although their wings are no larger. The immense numbers of seeds borne by the sugar maple insure abundant reproduction in the vicinity of parent trees. The seeds sprout readily, but often so closely crowded together that most of them die the first few weeks. Not one in ten thousand can even become a large tree, and yet large trees are exceedingly abundant in extensive regions. They often form nearly pure stands, crowding to death all rivals that try to obtain a foothold. On the other hand, this maple often contents itself with a place among other forest trees.

It is one of the most vigorous and dependable of trees. It does not grow fast, but it keeps steadily at it a long time, and enjoys unusually good health. Its worst enemy is coal smoke, but fortunately, most sugar maple forests are out of reach of that disturber, though shade trees near factory towns and in the vicinity of coke ovens often suffer. Woodlots of sugar maple, occupying corners of farms in the northern states from Minnesota to Maine, present pictures of health, vigor, cleanliness, and beauty which no forest tree surpasses. The intense green and the density of the crowns in summer make the trees conspicuous in any landscape where they occur, while their brilliant colors in autumn are the chief glory of the forest where they abound.

The wood of this tree is hard, strong, and dense. It is three pounds lighter per cubic foot than white oak, and theoretically it rates a little lower in fuel value, but those who use both woods as fuel consider maple worth more. It is thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and fifty-three per cent stiffer. The wood is diffuse-porous, that is, the pores are not arranged in bands or rows, as they usually are in oaks, but are scattered in all parts. They are too small to be seen with the naked eye, but under a magnifying glass they are visible in large numbers. The yearly ring is not very distinct, because of the slight contrast between spring and summerwood. The medullary rays are numerous but small. In wood sawed along radial lines, from heart to sap, small silvery flecks are numerous. These are the medullary rays. They add something to the appearance of quarter-sawed maple, but not enough to induce mills to turn out much of it.

Such figures as maple has are brought out best in tangential sawing—that is, cut like a slab off the side of the log. Three distinct figures are recognized in sugar maple, and to some extent they belong to other maples. These forms of wood are known as birdseye, curly, and blister maple. They are accidental forms and exist in certain trees only. Students of wood structure are not wholly agreed as to the cause of these forms, but one of them, the birdseye effect, is believed to be due to adventitious buds which distort the wood in their vicinity. These buds start near the center of the tree when it is small, but never succeed in forcing their way out. They remain just beneath the bark during most or the whole of the tree’s life. A pin-like core, resembling a fine thread, connects the birdseye with the tree’s pith. This thread is the pith of the embryonic branch formed by the bud which never breaks through the bark. When the wood is sawed tangentially, small, dark-brown points or dots show the center of the buds, or the pith line connecting it with the tree’s center. Curly maple and blister maple are not believed to be formed in the same way as birdseye.

The uses of sugar maple are nearly universal, where a hard, white wood is wanted. Many large trees contain little colored heart, and trees are generally fifty years old before they have any. More maple is worked into flooring than into any other one commodity. Mills in Michigan alone, in 1910, made 185,611,662 feet of maple flooring. It was shipped to practically every civilized country in the world. Many builders consider it the best wooden floor that can be laid. In a test made in a large store in Philadelphia some years ago, a marble floor wore through sooner than maple, when the same wear was on both.

Nearly all kinds and classes of furniture have places for maple, either as outside material or inside frames, drawer bottoms, or partitions. Vehicle manufacturers employ it for heavy axles, running gear, parts of automobiles, sleigh runners and frames, and hand sleds. It is made into handles from gimlet sizes to cant hooks. Gymnasium apparatus owes much to the whiteness, smoothness, and strength of maple. Woodenware from toothpicks to ironing boards; from butcher blocks to butter molds; from door knobs to die blocks, is dependent on maple for some of its best material. It is largely used for boxes, in both solid and veneer form. Only two woods are now employed in larger amounts for veneers in the United States than maple. They are red gum and yellow pine.

Maple is one of the three woods most largely employed in hardwood distillation in this country; beech and birch are the others. Maple sugar is a product of this tree almost exclusively, and the business is large. In some parts of New England it is claimed that a grove is worth more for sugar than the land is worth for agriculture.