The Earth as Modified by Human ActionMarsh, George P. (George Perkins)
History
The Earth as Modified by Human Action
Marsh, George P. (George Perkins)
Conservation of natural resources; Human geography; Nature -- Effect of human beings on; Physical geography
The Cultivator, an American agricultural journal, for June, 1842, states
that twenty gallons of sap were drawn in eighteen hours from a single
maple, two and a half feet in diameter, in the town of Warner, New
Hampshire, and the truth of this account has been verified by personal
inquiry made in my behalf. This tree was of the original forest growth,
and had been left standing when the ground around it was cleared. It was
tapped only every other year, and then with six or eight incisions. Dr.
Williams (History of Vermont, i., p. 01) says: "A man much employed in
milking maple sugar, found that, for twenty-one days together, a
maple-tree discharged seven and a half gallons per day."
An intelligent correspondent, of much experience in the manufacture of
maple sugar, writes me that a second-growth maple, of about two feet in
diameter, standing in open ground, tapped with four incisions, has, for
several seasons, generally run eight gallons per day in fair weather. He
speaks of a very large tree, from which sixty gallons were drawn in the
course of a season, and of another, something more than three feet
through, which made forty-two pounds of wet sugar, and must have yielded
not less than one hundred and fifty gallons.] This, however, is but a
trifling proportion of the water abstracted from the earth by the roots
during this season; for all this fluid runs from two or three incisions
or auger-holes, so narrow as to intercept the current of comparatively
few sap vessels, and besides, experience shows that large as is the
quantity withdrawn from the circulation, it is relatively too small to
affect very sensibly the growth of the tree. [Footnote: Tapping does not
check the growth, but does injure the quality of the wood of maples. The
wood of trees often tapped is lighter and less dense than that of trees
which have not been tapped, and gives less heat in burning. No
difference has been observed in the bursting of the buds of tapped and
untapped trees.] The number of large maple-trees on an acre is
frequently not less than fifty, [Footnote: Dr. Rush, in a letter to
Jefferson, states the number of maples fit for tapping on an acre at
from thirty to fifty. "This," observes my correspondent, "is correct
with regard to the original growth, which is always more or less
intermixed with other trees; but in second growth, composed of maples
alone, the number greatly exceeds this. I have had the maples on a
quarter of an acre, which I thought about an average of second-growth
'maple orchards,' counted. The number was found to be fifty-two, of
which thirty-two were ten inches or more in diameter, and, of course,
large enough to tap. This gives two hundred and eight trees to the acre,
one hundred and twenty-eight of which were of proper size for tapping."]
and of course the quantity of moisture abstracted from the soil by this
tree alone is measured by thousands of gallons to the acre. The sugar
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