MULTICAULIS SPECULATION 153 



"The times were rife with speculation. The great 

 panic and disaster of 1837 had thrown to the surface 

 many restless, unscrupulous spirits, who were willing 

 to embark in any enterprise, however daring or doubt- 

 ful its character, which seemed to promise the slightest 

 opportunity of regaining the fortunes they had lost. 

 Numbers of these plunged into the multicaulis specu- 

 lation, and made it more disastrous in its results than 

 it otherwise would have been ; but there is this ground 

 of consolation in regard to them, that not one of them 

 escaped the ruin they helped to bring upon others." 



I will transcribe even another account of this wild 

 speculation, in order that the reader may see this 

 curious chapter in our history as understood by different 

 students. The following is extracted from a paper 

 on "The Silk Industry in the United States from 

 1766 to 1874," by A. T. Lilly, contained in a bulletin 

 of the "National Association of Wool Manufacturers," 

 1875. Mr. Lilly speaks of this speculation as the 

 "multicaulis fever," and then continues: "Haste to 

 be rich led the way. Instead of the old method of 

 planting mulberry orchards with the well-known and 

 hardy varieties of the tree, the system was adopted of 

 securing from trees of a single season's growth leaves 

 fit for feeding. For this purpose, planting in close 

 hills or in hedges was necessary, and the Morus multi- 

 caulis was the favorite tree. Its luxuriant growth, 

 when stimulated, was indeed remarkable. Its leaves, 

 fed to the worm, produced a silk that. was not equal 

 in quality to that from the white mulberry. The trees 

 had to be housed in winter, either in cellars or in 

 earth-vaults. Notwithstanding the objections to it, 

 the multicaulis grew rapidly in popular favor. Rarely 



