1838] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



499 



to collect infonnation on the subject of silk culture. 

 Win. Prince is. Suns, of New York, wrote immediately 

 to Marseilles, in France, to their a^ent, ordering all 

 the books on tlie subject, and specimens of all the 

 mulberry trees known tliere in use for silk, to be sent 

 them. This was in the year 1826, and the plants ar- 

 rived January 7th, 1S27. Amon;; the frees received, 

 one variety vvas called the Philippine hland imdbernj. 

 Messrs. Prince immediately sent nie one tree of each 

 of the kinds t!iey received, amountin»;, 1 believe, to 15 

 kinds. The Philippine Island mulberry, proved to be 

 the tree subsequently named the morus multicaulis. A 

 year or two alter 1 received these trees from Prince, 

 the French papers published notices of tlie valuable 

 qualities of the morus multicaulis, a tree just introduced 

 by the cnterprisin"; Perottet, desciibinnj its characters 

 minutely. On reading those descriptions, I imme- 

 diately discovered that our Philippine Island mulberry 

 waj described as the multicaulis, and wrote to Mr. 

 Prince to that elfect, and at the same time informing 

 him that I had used it for feeding silk-worms, and 

 found it to be every thing the French writers had de- 

 scribed it to be. Prince concurred with me, and pro- 

 pagated the tree for sale, and has done so every year 

 since, besides importing from France more trees each 

 year than ever were produced in Virginia altogether, 

 until the present year. Dr. Pascalis,of N. York, in the 

 spring of 1830, received thr^e trees from France, one 

 of which he gave to my old friend Parmentier, then of 

 Long Island, om^ to Dr. Hosack of New York, and one 

 to some one unknown to me. The above is a circum- 

 stantial and true account of the introduction of this tree 

 into this country, and of the discovery of its valuable 

 properties. Messrs. Prince's old tree occupied a place 

 in their nursery till the fall of 1837, as an old stool for 

 layers; my old tree yet rtmains in my garden, where 

 it will continue while I live, as it is the oldest, and was 

 one of the first trees in America. So soon as I discovered 

 the valuable qualities of the tree, I commenced propa- 

 gating it and distributing to every one whom I could 

 persuade to take it. I gave it to every nurseryman in 

 Baltimore; sent it to the south and west, and indeed 

 every where, where I could induce people to take it. 

 I can say freely, that were I paid down for all I then 

 gave away, at the present prices, I should have mone}' 

 in my purse, instead of being, as I am, out of pocket 

 no small sum, on account of my efforts to introduce it 

 into the country at large. I never kept any memoran- 

 dum of the trees I gave away, nor of the persons to 

 whom I gave them ; but I can adduce the testi- 

 mony of every nurseryman in Baltimore, (and of the 

 country at large, I might say,) to prove, that the 

 celebrity of the tree is clue to me, and that, for six 

 or seven years, I was alone in the effort to introduce 

 it. I gave trees to Mr. Samuel Feast, Mr. John Feast, 

 Mr. Robert Sinclair, Mr. James Wilkes, Mr. Bastien, 

 and numerous others, all regular nurserymen, in 1829, 

 or 1830, with urgent recommendations to propagate 

 them extensively, " for the time will come when you 

 will make your fortune by them " — my invariable 

 remark to all. I was laughed at by all; and, from 

 all quarters, was called "the mulberry madman," 

 " the silk-worm maniac, " and all that .sort of thing, 

 for my pains ; but still I persevered until I waked up 

 the sleeping lion effectually. »*•**•** 



Mr. Smith, as editor of the American Farmer for 

 several years, and, indeed, for several years before, (as 

 far back as 1826,) had been urging the value of silk- 

 culture, and the propriety of propagating the mul- 

 berry. His editorial influence, (which, for this pur- 

 pose, was used before he was ostensibly an editor of 

 an agricultural journal,) gave him the greatest facilities 

 for disseminating his opinions on the general subject ; 

 and as soon as he had learned the value of the multi- 

 caulis, all his zeal was enlisted in aid of spreading the 



plant itself, and a knowledge of its value, throughout 

 the United States, and even beyond the limits of this 

 country. Another passage of his letter says, 



" When I had satisfied myself of its qualities, I be- 

 gan to publish my opinions, and they will be found in 

 the American Farnnfr, from 1831 to 1834 inclusive, as 

 well as in almost every other agricultural journal in the 

 country. My public writings, however, did not com- 

 prise one hundredth part of my labors in the cause. It 

 was by private correspondence I did the great amount. 

 I was incessantly plied with letters from all parts of 

 the union, making inquiries in relation to the best 

 kinds of mulberry trees lor silk-worms ; and in answer 

 to them all, I invariably recommended the morus mul- 

 ticaulis, when there was not another mania the country, 

 except Mr. Prince, Dr. Pascalis, (who merely adopt- 

 ed the opinions of his friends in France, having 

 no experience of his own,) and Mr. Parmentier of 

 New York, who agreed with me. From the summer 

 of 1830, to the present time, I must have written some 

 thousands of such letters. Great numbers of these an- 

 swers have been published in the local newspapers, 

 where they were received, and of course multiplied 

 greatly the number of inquirers. I have often had 

 five to ten letters a day, from that lime to this, to an- 

 swer on this subject — for, be it known, the present 

 mania has not lessened, but, on the contrary, materially 

 increased my correspondence on this subject. The 

 great burden of my labors has therefore been unseen 

 by the public ; but still, the public has seen enough in 

 the public prints, besides all this, to award to me the 

 credit of being the promoter of the culture of morus 

 multicaulis in this country. So universal is the opi- 

 nion that this credit belongs to me, that strangers, whom 

 I never saw nor heard of before, have frequently called 

 on me to inspect the leaves of my trees, fearing they 

 had not obtained the right kind, and supposing that I 

 was the original importer of the tree. Many persons 

 have come to me from a distance, to get trees from me, 

 to be certain of getting the genuine ones, when they 

 could have got them at their own doors for far less ex- 

 pense. I have sent the trees to South America, to 

 Cuba, Jamaica, and to several places on the Mississippi 

 river, all gratuitously; for having been applied to for in- 

 formation on the subject of silk, and the best kind of 

 trees, from those places, my recommendation of the 

 multicaulis was always accompanied, when a convey- 

 ance offered and the season admitted, with at least one 

 tree, or cuttings. 



"Another point. The facility of cultivating, and par- 

 ticularly of propagating the tree, was discovered by 

 me. When I received my first tree, an accident befel 

 it that was nearly fatal. It was growing in my garden 

 with 15 other kinds, and I was feeding silk-worms 

 with every spare leaf I could get from it. In 1829, I 

 believe, about the first of July, I discovered one 

 morning, that the leaves were all turning yellow. 

 Knowing its value, I was considerably frightened, and 

 immediately wrote to Messrs. Prince to send me ano- 

 ther tree, as mine was dead. Late in the season as it 

 was, they did send me one, that was growing in a flower 

 pot with an oleander; I presume they had put a small 

 cutting there accidentally. But, as soon as I had 

 written to them, I went to the garden and examined 

 the tree carefully, and found that a nest of ants had 

 surrounded the tree and perforated the trunk at the 

 ground, through and through, and that it was dead 5 or 

 6 inches from the ground, but that the whole top was 

 yet sound. I took a spade and dug a trench south of 

 the tree, intending to layer it; in the hope that I might 

 make it take root again, and thus save it. On bending 

 it down, it broke short off near the ground. On this oc- 

 currence, my wife and other persons looking on, ob- 

 served that I ''turned as pale as a iheet;" I mention this 

 to show how much I then thought of it. I, however, 

 covered up the tree, turning up the end of each branch 

 just above the earth, watered it well, and never looked 



