162 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



the early adventurers and narrators of the colonization 

 and colonial periods of the country, and it was often 

 used as a food for the silk worm. It appears to have 

 been originally found in the Massachusetts Bay region, 

 for Francis Higginson speaks of "mulberries," amongst 



Fig. 21 



mulberry, as it grows in central N 



other wild fruits, in his "New -England's Plantation," 

 published in 1630 ; but it is not now indigenous to that 

 region. William Strachey, who was in Virginia about 

 1610 to 1612, and wrote a "Historic of Travaile into 

 Virginia Britannia," says that the Indians were familiar 

 with the tree: "By their dwellings are some great 

 mulberrye trees, and these in some parte of the country 

 are found growing naturally in pretty groves: there 

 was an assay made to make silke, and surely the 



