"We can certainly buy the sugar in town, Malcolm, if that is what you mean; but it does not grow on the trees in cakes, and we shall scarcely be able to tap the trunks and go through with the process of preparing the sap, even if it were not too late for that. We will do what we can, though, to become acquainted with the rock maple, that we may be able to recognize it when we see it. When young, it is a beautiful, neat and shapely tree with a rich, full leafy head of a great variety of forms. It is the largest and strongest of the maples, and gives the best shade. It can be distinguished from the other members of the family by its leaves, in which the notch between the lobes is round instead of being sharp, and also by their appearing at the same time with the blossoms, which are of a yellowish-green color. The green tint of the leaves is darker on some trees than it is on others, and in autumn they become, often before the first touch of the frost, of a splendid orange or gold, sometimes of a bright scarlet or crimson, color, each tree commonly retaining from year to year the same color or colors, and differing somewhat from every other. The most beautiful and valuable maple-wood is taken from this tree. It is known as 'curled maple' and 'bird's-eye maple,' and the common variety looks like satin-wood. In the curled maple the fibres are in waves instead of in straight lines, and the surface seems to change with alternate light and shade; in the bird's-eye, irregular snarls of fibres look like roundish projections rising from hollow places, each one resembling the eye of a bird. Buckets, tubs and many useful things are made of the straight variety, and for lasts it is considered better than any other kind of wood. The curled and the bird's-eye are largely used for furniture."