260 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



iments according to different modes. In all cases and for all varieties, 

 the land should be well pulverized and subsoiled, to insure success. 



There is no tree that will bear so much pruning in the summer season 

 and flourish under it, as the mulberry. Indeed, this tree seems to have 

 been made with a constitution especially adapted to the use to which it 

 is applied. The mulberry tree was made for the silkworm, and the 

 worm was made for the mulberry tree — a perfect adaptation to each 

 other, and both to the wants of man or woman. 



The mulberry tree may also be propagated from the seed, which is a 

 little larger than a mustard seed. In this State the seed should be 

 planted in April or May, in damp but warm soil, well cultivated or pul- 

 verized. It should be covered from a half inch to an inch and a half. 

 If the soil is very damp and not liable to dry on the surface, a half inch 

 is a plenty. The soil should be of that nature that it will keep damp to 

 the very surface. I planted from two to three acres last year with seed 

 of the alba and moretti, and only succeeded in making the seed come 

 up on about an acre and a half. The}- were planted on the Sacramento 

 Eiver, about two miles above Sacramento. In the winter of eighteen 

 hundred and sixtv-five, before a levee was built along the river, the water 

 ran across the land, and washed the surface soil, a vegetable mould, 

 entirely off of about an acre and a half of the land, leaving a light sandy 

 clay, through which the moisture rose to the very surface — so much so 

 that until ten or eleven o'clock of the warmest days in May the surface 

 looked wet. Here, on this land, the seed came up and grew well, while 

 on the land directly by its side, but upon which the vegetable or surface 

 soil remained, very few of the seeds germiuated, and none came up. As 

 the sun warmed up the surface of this vegetable soil, thfe moisture 

 receded, leaving the surface very dry and hot; and, as the tender leaves 

 of the young trees reached this dry soil they withered or baked, and 

 died, while the moisture of the sandy and clay soil, reaching the very 

 surface, protected and invigorated the young leaves, and forced them 

 up. I have been thus particular in giving my experience in this matter, 

 because almost every one else who planted seed made an entire failure, 

 and I made a partial success, in consequence of the peculiar condition of 

 some of my land. 



I would recommend in putting out plantations that about one-half of 

 the trees be of multicaulis and the other half alba or moretti; the for- 

 *mcr to be fed to the worms until the last moulting, and the latter after 

 that period. 



PERMANENT PLANTATIONS. 



My plantations are set with trees, six feet by two. Every one hundred 

 and lift}* feet one way I leave a wagon way, and every four hundred feet 

 the other way. The former ways are twelve feet wide and the latter 

 sixteen. I think these distances will do well for the multicaulis, as 

 this tree sends its branches up in the direction of and pretty close to the 

 body, of the tree, and is easily managed as a dwarf. The alba and 

 moretti are of a different habit. They incline to spread, throwing their 

 branches out horizontally, and growing with greater determination to 

 make large trees. From this I conclude that these trees may be required 

 to be planted further apart, say four by six, and maybe more. These 

 latter varieties should be made to branch from the body about four feet 

 high, thus making a head within reach from the ground. The- multi- 

 caulis may be headed even lower. 



