MORACEjE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



81 



open ducts marking the layers of annual growth, and is light orange-color, with thick lighter colored 

 nearly white sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5898, a cubic foot weighing 

 36.75 pounds. Its durability makes it valuable for fencing, for which it is largely used, as well as in 

 cooperage, and in the southern states it is often employed in ship and boat building. From the inner 

 bark the Indians of the southern states obtained a fibre with which they wove coarse cloth.^ 



Morus rubra was introduced into English gardens early in the seventeenth century,^ and was first 

 described from a cultivated plant in Parkinson's Paradisi in sole Paradisiis TerrestriSy^ pubhshed in 

 London in 1629, although the efforts of the Crown to establish sericulture in North America had much 

 earlier drawn the attention of travelers in the colonies to the native Mulberry-tree, which is often 

 mentioned in their narratives.^ 



The Red Mulberry 



onally planted in orchards in the southe 



fruit, which is considered valuable for fattening hogs and as food for poultry ; but 



for the sake of 

 as a fruit-tree 



has been generally neglected by horticulturists who have, ho 



multiplied 



three natural 



ties distinguished for the large size and good quahty of their fruits or for their productiveness 

 The size of the Red Mulberry, surpassing as it does in height and beauty all Mulberry-tre< 



5 



of 



temperate regions, the dense shade afforded by its broad compact 



of dark blue 



6 



freedom from disease and the attacks of disfiguring insects, its prolificness, its hardiness except 

 earliest years, and the rapidity of its growth in good soil, make it a most desirable ornamental tre( 



its 



Morus foliis amplissimis Fid similibus, fi 



n 



Will 



^ " A fourth chiefe commoditie wee may account to be the great 



number of Mulberrie trees, apt to feede Silke-worms to make p 

 silke : whereof there was such plentie in many places, that, though 



they found some hempe in the countrie, the Spaniards made ropes in Virginia in 1610, found by the houses of the settlers "some great 



of the barks of them for their brigandines, when they were to sut mulberrye trees, and these in some parts of the country are found 



to see for Nona Hispania." (^Virginia richly valued. Written by a growing naturally in pretty groves : there was an assay nnade to 



Portugall gentleman of Eluas, emploied in all the action, and trans- make silke, and surely the wormes prospered excellently well until 



lated out of Portuguese, by Richard Hakluyt, Epistle Dedicatore, the master workman fell sick, during which tyme they were eaten 



p. 3 [Force, ColL Hist. Tracts^ iv. No. 1].) with ratts, and this wilbe a commoditie not meanely profitable." 



"This tree (the Mulberry) is found in abundance in the North (^The History of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, ed. Major, 117.) 



Western parts of Florida : the chactaws put its inner bark in hot 



See, also, Nova Britannia : Offering most excellent fruites for Plant- 



water along with a quantity of ashes and obtain filaments, with ing in Virginia. London, 1609, p. 16 (Force, L c. i. No. 6) ; A 

 which they weave a kind of cloth not unlike a coarse hempen Perfect Description of Virginia, London, 1G19, in which among the 

 cloth." (Romans, Nat, Hist, Florida, 142. See, also, Le Page du natural products of the Colony are mentioned " Mulbery-trees, the 



Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, ii. 192.) 



2 Aiton, Hort, Kew. iii. 343. — Loudon, Arh, Brit, iii. 1359, t 

 ^ Morus Virginiana, 599, f . 4 ; Theatr, 1492. 



natural and proper food for Silke- wormes, they have abundance in 

 the woods, and some so large that one tree contains as many leaves 

 as will feed Silke-wormes that will make as much Silk as may be 



Corylus maxima folio latissimo Virginiana, Ray, Hist, PL ii. 1799. worth five pounds sterling money, this some French men affirm," 

 Morifolia Virginiensis arbor , Loti arboris instar ramosa, foliis p. 6 (Force, L c. ii. No. 8); and Virginia: more especially the South 



amplissimis, Plukenet, Phyt, t. 246, f. 4 ; Aim, Bot, 253. — Miller, 



Did. No. 6. 



Morus Virginiana, foliis latissimis scabrisy fructu rubro longiori, 



Miller, Diet. No. 5. 



part thereof. Richly and truly valued, ed. 2, by E. W. Gent, London, 

 1650 (Force, I c. iii. No. 11). 



^ L. H. Bailey, Bull, Hort. Div, Cornell Agric, Exper, Stat, No. 



10, 238. 



