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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3610, 14 December 1905, Page 4

if*’ 1 i«w*i •* 9w*' Should we plant maple groves? There can hardly be two opinions on this subject, The beet sugar industry is a problem, but the maple sugar industry mu er was a problem. It pays better than three-fourths of our farm work. At eight cents a pound maple sugar finds ready market, while much of the better product sells at ten and twelve cents. The sirup is sold by producers diroatiy to consumers at one dollar a gallon—very rarely at less than 80 cents. Throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other states this direct sale to consumer?, takes up a large part of the product, excepting only two or three counties of northern New York. But it is not just now as a market product that the subject should be mainly considered. Every family is a sugar consumer and a sugar buyer. Most farmers can make tire larger part of this sugar supply as easily as they can raise their own potatoes. A family of six or seven will consume from one to two barrels of sugar in a year. Granulated sugar will cost such a family from sls to S3O a year. A grove of 50J trees will produce from 200 to 250 pounds of maple sugar. That is, where the trees stand in the open. The product is less where the sugar is made from trees in the forest. This is equivalent to at least half the family’s requirements for sugar. But the sales of sirup will make an aggregate value per tree even higher. A grove of 50 trees standing in the open will occupy not more than a quarter of an acre. , Besides the sugar product, the grove is advantageous for shade, also for an enormous product of humus each fall, and for windbreaks and shelter, and as an equalizer of temperature and moisture. Maple trees should grow in a grove. They do not thrive well as street trees, where they are subject to much abuse of the saw and exposure of the trunk to hot sunshine. A grove might well be given place on every farm of 20 acres. Why shall there not be a general planting of maple groves during the spring of 1898 ?~N. Y. Tribune.