232 OUE COMMON EEUITS. 



to the surface after having lain dormant in the earth for 

 24 years. It rarely reaches a height of SO ft., and though 

 of a much-branched spreading character, does not usually 

 attain a very large size. The bark is always rough an'd 

 thick, but the leaves are subject to so much diversity of 

 size and shape as to have given rise at one time to the 

 idea of there being several distinct varieties from the 

 common sort. Only one, however, is now reckoned, and 

 that differing so little in essentials that it need scarcely 

 have been separated ; so that the remark is still applicable 

 which was made so many centuries ago by Pliny respect- 

 ing the mulberry, that "it is in this tree that human 

 ingenuity has effected the least improvement of all : there 

 are no varieties here, no modifications effected by graft- 

 ing, nor, in fact, any other improvement, except that 

 the size of the fruit by careful management has been 

 increased." 



In America the mulberry will scarcely grow farther 

 north than New York, and it is in no part much cultivated, 

 since even where apparently fine fruit is abundantly pro- 

 duced, it is not found equal in flavour to what is grown 

 in England. A native variety, the Morus rubra, very 

 common in both North and South America, and which 

 has larger leaves than M. nigra, bears red fruit, tolerably 

 palatable, but far inferior to our black. 



In common with its near relative the fig, which it 

 also resembles in the circumstance of its aggregate fruit 

 being formed by the union of numerous flowers, the mul- 

 berry contains in every part of the tree a milky juice, 

 which will coagulate into a coarse sort of India-rubber ; 

 and as this specially abounds in the white species, it has 

 been surmised that the tenacity of the filament spun by 

 the silk-worm may be due to this element of its food. It 

 is rarely that this White Mulberry, originally a native of 

 China, is seen in England, its very inferior fruit being 

 only fit to feed poultry, but it may be readily distinguished 

 even in winter from its negro brother, by its slender up- 

 right shape and more numerous white-barked shoots. In 

 general it grows faster than M. nigra, its leaves are less 

 rough as well as more juicy, and its bark, macerated and 



