12 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



producing worm. This they did, concealing them in 

 a hollow cane, contrived to hatch them in Constan- 

 tinople, and fed the young worms with mulberry 

 leaves. So the story runs ; and we must therefore 

 conclude that there was no lack by this time of 

 mulberry trees. How early they were grown in 

 Europe, it has been already stated, it is impossible to 

 decide. "We know," says Evelyn, " that till after 

 Italy had made silk above a thousand years, they re- 

 ceived it not in France, it being hardly yet a hundred 

 years since they betook themselves to this manufacture 

 in Provence, Languedoc, Dauphine, Lionois, &c, 

 and not in Orleanois till Henry lV.'s time." 



It was not until early in the seventeenth century 

 that any serious attempt was made to introduce 

 silkworms into England and with them the mulberry 

 tree for food. In 160S, James I. issued a proclama- 

 tion concerning the planting of mulberry trees, in 

 which it was asserted that "the making of silk may 

 as well be effected here, as in the kingdom of 

 France," and persons of influence in the different 

 counties of England were called upon to promote the 

 object of the proclamation, practical assistance being 

 given by sending above ten thousand plants for sale 

 in each county at an almost nominal price, by the 

 issuing of a "book of directions, acts of council and 

 and all other princely assistance." Nor did the king 

 confine his endeavours to Britain, but he used every 

 effort to encourage their introduction into the new 

 country of America. Although the plantations seem 

 to have nourished to a certain extent, our climate 

 proved to be too cold for the silkworms. Still, 

 another effort was made about a century later by the 

 establishment of a company, which obtained a lease, 

 or 122 years, of Chelsea Fark. There they planted 

 mulberry trees extensively and erected buildings for 

 the accommodation of the silkworms, but only to end 

 once more in failure ; and since that time the only 

 other attempt made in Britain on a large scale was in 

 1S35, when another company planted eighty acres in 

 Ireland (in co. Cork) with four thousand trees, with 

 the result that they soon had to transfer their opera- 

 tions to Malta, the climate again being unfavourable 

 to the success of the undertaking. 



Repeated attempts, too, were made in America. 

 Evelyn tells us that the trees were introduced into 

 Virginia, and that " Sir J. Berkely, who was many 

 years governor of that ample colony, told me he 

 presented the king (Charles II.) with as much silk 

 made there, as made his majesty a compleat suit of 

 apparel. " Again, in 1 7S9, nurseries of mulberry trees 

 were established in many parts of the United States, 

 but though the trees grew and the climate was not 

 unfavourable to the silkworm, a scarcity of labour and 

 its high rate proved too great an obstacle, and the 

 trade never was fully developed. 



The Chinese, for the most part, prefer the white 

 mulberry, Morns alba, for rearing silkworms, and the 

 cultivation of the trees has been subject to the strictest 



regulations from the time of one of their earlier 

 emperors, who made a law which provided, amongst 

 other rules, that every man possessing an estate of 

 not less than five acres, should plant its boundaries 

 with mulberry trees. Nor were the Chinese empresses 

 less zealous in promoting a branch of industry so well 

 adapted for women ; they not only set an example by 

 employing themselves in spinning and weaving, but 

 they held festivals with great ceremony, in the 

 autumn, in honour of the invention of silk weaving. 

 Mulberry groves were planted and carefully cultivated 

 within the gardens of the palace, and at the time 

 appointed, the empress with the princesses and ladies- 

 of her train, after sacrificing in the Temple of the 

 Earth, proceeded to the mulberry groves, where she 

 gathered leaves, and wound cocoons of silk, which 

 she afterwards spun and wove with her own hands 

 into small webs. These were carefully preserved for 

 their great annual festival (at which was celebrated 

 the return of spring, in the same temple), when they 

 were burned in sacrifice. 



The mulberry tree is in China subjected to continual 

 pruning in order that it may produce fine leaves, a 

 practice which tends greatly to deform the trees ; the 

 leaves are gathered several times in the year (in some 

 parts of India as many as six times), and though the 

 trees are thus deprived of their foliage again and 

 again, they seem to lose none of their vitality ; in 

 fact, the mulberry is a tree remarkable for its 

 hardiness and long life — many of the old mulberry 

 trees still in a flourishing condition in our own 

 country having been planted as the result of King 

 James' proclamation ; and the celebrated tree in 

 Shakespeare's garden at Stratford is probably even a 

 little older. It is said that repeated large crops of 

 fruit are never known to exhaust the trees. 



The fruit of the mulberry tree is, perhaps, 

 comparatively little used or esteemed, as it is not 

 sweet until so ripe that it drops from the bough, and 

 therefore is seldom brought to table in perfection. 

 Mulberries are sometimes preserved in the form of a 

 syrup, and are also, mixed with the juice of apples, 

 made into a beverage of a deep, iich colour and 

 luscious flavour, which is called mulberry cider. The 

 fruit has also had its medicinal uses, though its. 

 virtues would appear to be slight and unimportant,, 

 and no longer recognised except in domestic 

 remedies, when either as a syrup or in the form of 

 vinegar, made in a similar way to raspberry vinegar, 

 it forms an agreeable gargle, useful lor inflammatory 

 sore throat, or is given as a cooling drink. 



Another kind of mulberry, the Moms sativa, grows, 

 wild in China ; from the inner bark of this plant, 

 the Chinese have, for many centuries, made a kind of 

 paper which is used for money in a similar manner 

 to our bank-notes ; the invention is attributed to the 

 Emperor Kublai Khan, who had the paper stamped 

 with his own special mark, to counterfeit which was 

 punishable with death. 



