262 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES, 



"mulberry-trees with frost;" and this must have 

 been recorded as a remarkable instance of the divine 

 displeasure, for the mulberry is universally known 

 not to put forth its buds and leaves till the season is 

 so far advanced that, in the ordinary course of events, 

 there is no inclement weather to be a])prehended. 

 It has therefore been called the wisest of trees ; and 

 in heraldry it is adopted as " an hieroglyphic of 

 wisdom, whose property is to speak and to do all 

 things in opportune season*." In the history of the 

 wars of David with the Philistines, the nudberry- 

 tree is mentioned as a familiar object. Pliny says of 

 it, somewhat questionably, that " when it beg'ins to 

 bud, it despatches the business in one night, and that 

 with so much force, that their breaking forth may be 

 distinctly heard." Thunberg, an oriental traveller, 

 tells us, which is still more extraordinary, that the 

 sheath which encloses the flower of the talipot palm 

 bursts with an explosion like the report of a cannon. 

 In this country, there are many old mulberry-trees, 

 of large dimensions, and remarkable also for the 

 quantity of fruit they bear. It is probable that some 

 of these old trees were planted at the latter end of 

 the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth 

 centuries ; for James I. endeavoured to render the 

 cultivation of the tree general, in the same way that 

 Henry IV. had laboured to introduce it in France. 

 The first mulberry trees of England are said to have 

 been planted at Sion House, the seat of the Duke of 

 Northumberland, in 1548 ; and the trees, though 

 decayed in the trunk, still bear fruit. Mulberry 

 gardens were common in the seventeenth century, 

 in the neighbourhood of London ; but either from 

 the chmate, or the prejudices of the people, the 

 growth of silk never prospered. The mulberry is 

 distinguished for the facility with which it may be 

 * GuiUim's Display of Heraldry. 



