1882.1 



AND H0R2ICULTURIST. 



127 



flowers or foliage. The Mulberry stands nearly 

 alone in its special recommendation, which, as 

 every one knows, is to supply food to the " mil- 

 lions of spinning worms," 



"That in their green sliops weave the smooth-haired silk." 



It should be stated that the White Mulberry has 

 almost entirely superseded the Black Mulberry 

 as a food-plant for the silkworm. Three centu- 

 ries ago the Black Mulberry was alone used for 

 this purpose, and it is to this latter that the 

 following remarks chiefly apply. In physiognomy 

 and stature it is by no means remarkable, the 

 height not exceeding thirty feet. The brandies 

 are thick and rude, the head of the tree is close 

 and rounded, the leaves are cordate, nearly 

 sessile, rough, coarsely serrated, and very dark 

 in hue. The form of the leaf is prone, however, 

 to very curious changes, the blade often becom- 

 ing more or less perfectly three or five lobed. 

 The flowers are separately male and female, the 

 males appearing in short yellowish-green catkins, 

 the females in compact and almost globular green 

 spikes. The perianth in the latter consists of 

 four pieces, and it is these, strange to say, which 

 eventually constitute the great mass of the ripe 

 fruit. With the progress of the ovary to maturity 

 the perianth lobes become greatly enlarged and 

 finally confluent. Structurally the Mulberry is 

 thus not very unlike the fruit of the Pine-apple. 

 The tree is of great durability, and seems to be 

 wonderfully tenacious of life. It is tolerably 

 hardy, deciduous, and in the spring very late in 

 acquiring its verdure. 



That the original birthplace was south-western 

 Asia there can be no question. At the present 

 day it is observable in a seemingly quite wild 

 condition in the northern parts of Asia Minor, 

 Armenia, and the southern Caucasian regions, 

 as far as Persia. 



There is no exact knowledge of the early his- 

 tory of the Mulberry. The ancient Greek writers 

 upon plants and trees speak of it under the name 

 of /iupov. " Moron of Sycamine," says Dioscor- 

 ides, B. c. 25, is well known." Athenseus also 

 gives proof of the name Sycamine being a 

 synonym. With the Romans the name became 

 Morus, the tree having reached Italy some time 

 prior to though not so very long before the 

 Christian era. Horace praises Mulberries as 

 immensely conducive to health if gathered before 

 the heat of the day, and eaten as dessert after 

 dinner. Martial also refers to this fruit, and in 

 Virgil, MgVe, the playful shepherdess of the 

 sixth eclogue, paints the eyelids of the sleeping 



poet with the purple juice. To the very early 

 Greeks the Mulberry would appear to have been 

 a stranger. The period of the first conveyance 

 of the tree from Asia into Europe is altogether 

 undiscoverable; it was early enough, however, 

 to become the subject of a myth, preserved in 

 the pathetic tale of the loves of Pyramus and 

 Thisbe. The extension westwards was no doubt 

 ovving chiefly to the Romans, who after their 

 victories never omitted to convey homewards 

 what they found valuable in other countries,; 

 and who, to their credit, at the same time, it 

 should be remembered, were always diligent in 

 conveying to conquered countries the plants and 

 trees they thought most useful to mankind. 

 Their object in propagating the Mulberry would 

 no doubt be to obtain supplies of silk, as a home- 

 product, instead of depending for all they pos- 

 sessed on the merchants who traded with the 

 far East. Silk in the time of the Csesars was so 

 scarce, and the cost was so enormous, that even 

 so late as in A. d. 270, the Emperor Aurelian is 

 said to have refused his wife a dress of the pure 

 material. Even royalty could not then atford to 

 wear silk unmixed with some cheaper fibre. 

 Silk was not even known to the Roman people 

 until the period of the empire, though afterwards 

 it is mentioned frequently in their literature. 

 Charlemagne, who did so much for the good of 

 his nation, in A. D. 812 ordered the Mulberry to 

 be cultivated upon all the imperial farms ; and 

 possibly it may have been about this time that 

 the tree was first carried across the English 

 Channel, " mor-beam," literally " morus-tree," 

 occurring, Bosworth tells us, as an Anglo-Saxon 

 word. When London gives 1548 as the year of 

 the introduction to England, he surely must 

 have in view some definite historical occurrence 

 — a renewed rather than a first appearance. 

 James I. like Charlemagne, did all he could to 

 encourage the home production of silk. He im- 

 ported shiploads of young Mulberry trees from 

 France, and oflered a packet of Mulberry seeds 

 to any one who would assist in his undertaking. 

 In consequence of the patronage thus given to 

 the tree, it is said that by 1609 there were in 

 England not fewer than 100,000 of the Morus 

 nigra, and of these it is believed some are still in 

 existence, including the famous old Mulberries 

 at Syon, and one or two at Oxford. In the gar- 

 dens of country seats which date from the time 

 of Elizabeth or earlier very aged Mulberries are 

 also apt to occur, and these likewise are probably 

 almost as old. The royal scheme, like so many 

 others, set on foot by the unfortunate first of the 

 Stuarts, died in its infancy. Praiseworthy, and 

 for awhile promising, in the end it proved utterly 

 unsuccessful. — Gardener's Chronicle. 



Michigan State Horticultural Society. — 

 From secretary Garfield, Grand Rapids, Michi- 

 gan. — Without derogation to the work of other 



