This large and beautiful tree is much cultivated in America on account chiefly of the _juice_ which it yields, and which is made into sugar. The process of obtaining the juice is, in the spring of the year, to bore holes about two inches deep into the tree, and to put into each of these holes a projecting spout, by which it may be conveyed into troughs placed to receive it. Each tree will afford from twenty to thirty gallons of juice, from which may be obtained five or six pounds of sugar. The juice is clear, of pleasant flavour; and, in its simple state, is sometimes drunk as a remedy against the scurvy. The sugar, which is obtained from it by evaporation, is clean to the eye, and very sweet, but it has a peculiar, though not unpleasant taste. It may be clarified and refined in the same manner as the common sugars. The juice of the maple furnishes also a pleasant wine, and a very excellent vinegar. The _wood_ of this tree is valuable as timber, and is also well adapted for turnery and cabinet ware, more particularly as it is said not to be liable to suffer by the depredations of insects. Possessing these properties, and being sufficiently hardy to sustain the rigours even of a cold climate, its culture, in our own country, would be attended with great advantage, and cannot be too strongly recommended. 122. _The SYCAMORE_ (Acer pseudoplatanus, Fig. 70) _is a handsome tree of British growth, which has leaves in five lobes unequally serrated; and green flowers in pendant clusters._ It is peculiarly deserving of remark concerning this tree, that it grows better near the sea than in any other situation, and that plantations of sycamores may be so made as even to defend the herbage of the adjacent country from the spray, and consequently from the injurious effects of the sea. Its growth is quick, yet it will increase in size until it is two hundred years old. The soil in which it best flourishes is a loose black earth. The only inconveniences attending it in plantations is the early shedding of its leaves. In the spring of the year the inhabitants of some parts of Scotland bore holes through the bark of the sycamore, at the distance of about twelve inches from the root, and suffer the _juice_ to drain into vessels, to the amount of eight or nine quarts a day from each tree. This liquor they convert into a kind of wine; and, if the watery part were evaporated, a useful sugar might be obtained from it. The _wood_ of the sycamore is soft and white, and was formerly much in request by turners, for making trenchers, dishes, bowls, and other articles; but, since the general introduction of earthen-ware for all these purposes, its value has greatly decreased. 123. _CRANBERRIES are a small red fruit with purple dots, produced by a slender wiry plant_ (Vaccinium oxycoccos), _which grows in the peaty bogs of several parts of the north of England, and also in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Cambridgeshire._