154 THE EVOLUTION OP OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



was a garden or a cultivated spot to be seen without 

 this tree. A demand for the trees themselves sprung 

 up, a demand that gave them an absurd and fac- 

 titious value. Prices ranged, for trees produced from 

 one bud or cutting, and of a single season's growth, 

 from five cents to ten, twenty, fifty cents, one dollar, 

 and in some instances five dollars apiece. The value 

 of trees became greater than that of the silk that 

 could be obtained by them; the trees were worth too 

 much to be used for silk culture, and the raising of 

 these trees became a speculative business of great 

 activity. The excitement reached its culminating point 

 in 1839, when the fortunes of many thrifty men who 

 had embarked in the enterprise were wrecked in bank- 

 ruptcy. Even then, although the failure of the multi- 

 caulis was assured, the mania for raising mulberry - 

 trees was not abated, hardier varieties being its objects. 

 The writer was witness to an instance of the height to 

 which this excitement carried prices, and places the 

 facts here as a matter of record. Two trees of one 

 season's growth, raised by Elder Sharp, of North 

 Windham, Conn., were sold, standing in his nursery, 

 in August, 1842, after due advertisement, at auction. 

 The first one offered brought $106, the second $100; 

 and further sales were withheld because the bidding 

 was not considered as sufficiently spirited. Disaster 

 followed this baseless speculation, as might have been 

 anticipated, when the price of the trees exceeded the 

 worth of the product ; . and in 1843-44 the fabric of 

 artificial values collapsed. A deep reaction in popular 

 feeling took the place of the former excitement ; and 

 the whole business of silk culture sank into disfavor, 

 along with the costly and now neglected mulberry -trees. 



