CORNELL UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 291 



The irritation which the Russian mulberry has produced reminds one of 

 the multicaulis fever of sixty years ago, but it is far less serious and wide 

 spread than that disease. This Russian mulberry has suffered from indis- 

 criminate and exaggerated praise. Save an occasionable sport, it has no 

 merit for fruit, unless it serves to attract birds from cherries and other 

 fruits, but even this is a problematic advantage. In the east, at least, it 

 has no merits for timber, as it is too small and grows too slowly. In the 

 prairie soils of the west it often grows into respectable post timber in a 

 short time. Mr. I. Horner of Emporia, Kansas, writes as follows, 

 concerning it: 



" It has been said that this tree is only a bushy shrub. I here exhibit to 

 you a section of a Russian mulberry tree five years old, and which has been 

 grown in a shelter belt and overshadowed with cottonwood trees. It is 

 five inches in diameter, and, as you see, a nice, straight and smooth trunk 

 eight or nine feet long. Another year's growth would make it suitable 

 for posts. I measured one tree which gave a circumference of 87-| inches 

 at a point two and a half feet above the ground, and which was only eight 

 years old. * * * It is one of the very best trees for shelter belts and 

 fence posts. From a hedge-row 15 rods long, I saw 200 nice fence posts 

 cut. The wood is very durable. * * * It is a tree for fuel, shelter and 

 posts for the western prairies." " There is a vast difference in character 

 of growth and quality of fruit. Most trees sold by nurserymen have been 

 grown from seed gathered from mulberry hedges and trees, with no regard 

 to quality of tree, and which naturally generates a large per cent, of 

 inferior stock. These may be known by a disposition to branch freely 

 ■close to the ground, and a drooping inclination of their growth. They 

 bear small notched leaves, and very small insipid fruit." " Shelter belts 

 should be constructed in rows 12 to 16 feet apart, and the trees from two 

 to four feet in the row. When three years old, cut all level with the ground. 

 From their roots will spring up a strong and rapid growth of shoots. 

 Remove all but the strongest to each tree. After two years, thin out as 

 may be desired." 



The Russian mulberry has been allowed by some land offices as a timber 

 tree under the timber claim law. 



But the chief merit of the Russian mulberry appears to be its value as 

 a hedge plant in cold regions. Mr. Rosenberger of Nebraska makes the 

 following note of it in a recent issue of American Gardening: "The 

 Russian mulberry does not make a serviceable hedge to turn stock, but for 

 an ornamental hedge there is nothing that I know of equal to it, at least 

 for the west and northwest. It endures the extremes of climate better 

 than any other plant or tree suitable for hedge purposes." This note is 

 accompanied by an engraving, which is borrowed for this occasion, of a 

 Russian mulberry hedge in Nebraska. Mr. G. J. Carpenter, secretary of 

 the Nebraska State Horticultural society and a prominent nurseryman, 

 writes me as follows upon this point: "Russian mulberry hedges are found 

 in nearly every town in Nebraska. It makes one of the finest ornamental 

 hedges. The Mennonites, when they came to this country, planted a great 

 many of them and used them to spread their clothing on to dry, and some 

 of these hedges are 12 and 15 years old and in good condition yet. There 

 are some very fine hedges in the western part of the state, west of the 100 



