by Rick Marsi
There is, in some parts of New England, a kind of tree … whose juice weeps out of its incisions, that if it be permitted slowly to exhale away the superfluous moisture, doth congeal into a sweet and sacharine substance.
- Robert Boyle, English Chemist, 1663
I’ll grant you, New England has plenty of fine sugar maples. But we New Yorkers have them, too. So many, in fact, we decided to make sugar maple our official state tree.
An excellent choice. A tall sugar maple is the pride of any New York state forest. It possesses all the qualities of arboreal greatness: majestic stature, commercial application, a fascinating history and, most important, the habit of making sweet syrup.
I’ll save the best part (the syrup) for last.
Sugar maples can’t show off their striking symmetry within the confines of a deciduous forest. They need the open spaces of parks, village streets and front yards to properly develop distinct oval crowns. Realizing the decorative beauty and shade-giving potential of these “liberated” sugar maples, village elders planted them along newly-built streets in small towns throughout upstate New York and New England.
That was 100 or 150 years ago. Those once-gangly saplings now tower above village greens and college quadrangles. Some hamlets blessed with sugar maples evolved into cities – good for business, perhaps, but bad for a tree by the curb. Requiring pure air to flourish, sugar maples proved no match for smoke and industrial smog. They were destined to remain small town trees. Folks in those towns called them by many names, including “hard maple.” Because of their strength and durability, sugar maples remain favorites with furniture makers. “Curly” and “bird’s-eye” maple also are sugar tree names, referring to fancy grains sugar maples produce only rarely.
The sugar maple’s history is bonded to its fame as a syrup producer. Long before colonists arrived, indigenous tribes had tapped into the tree’s sweet potential. Indians cut gashes in maples, then inserted hollow reeds, stems or sumac twigs as spiles. Oozing sap dripped into hollowed-out gourds. When the gourds became full, harvesters emptied them into large elm-bark troughs. To burn off excess water, Indians dropped heated rocks in the troughs.
Historians report these Native American syrup makers sometimes poured syrup onto snow, whereupon village children scraped it up and consumed it as candy. The reports don’t relate if adults were allowed to join in.
Take a ride in the country as early spring evenings linger. Look for old farms and rows of sugar maples. As you drive by massive gray trunks, pay tribute to a tree that invites us to anticipate vernal beginnings. Pay tribute to the family that planted sugar maple saplings a century ago, knowing generations other than theirs would live to appreciate sweep sap, summer shade and comforting permanence.
Naturalist Rick Marsi, a member of the Susquehanna Group, is a journalist, public speaker and leader of eco-tours. His book of favorite nature columns is Wheel of Seasons, available at www.rickmarsi.com. ©2011 Rick Marsi