19 



GROWTH OF THE MULBERRY TREE. 



Standard trees, when once well rooted, will thrive in 

 any soil that is not too wet ; the gigantic size to which 

 the wild native mulberry attains in the western country, 

 and numerous examples of large and thrifty trees in the 

 Atlantic states, furnish abundant evidence of this. The 

 mulberry tree attains to a very great age, and no other 

 tree of equal growth and beauty resists so well the influ- 

 ences of the sea atmosphere. Two or three grand 

 specimens of this beautiful tree, says Mr Phillips, stand- 

 ing on the most exposed situation of the northeast 

 coast of England > not only defy the enemy, but delight 

 intheir situation : throwing out their noble limbs in all 

 directions, and assuming a foliage rich, full, and tufted 

 to its topmost boughs : one of them is of the greatest 

 magnitude, though some of its vast limbs have been torn 

 from it ; it is still in vigor, and in point of richness of 

 effect, the oak itself is scarcely superior. They are 

 abundantly prolific. The red, or, as it is more commonly 

 called, the purple mulberry, is considered as the only 

 species indigenous in this country.* The northern ex- 

 tremity of Lake Champlain is, according to Michaux, its 

 most northern limit. It is found in all the states of the 

 Union, south and west, and Dr James found it as far 

 west as the river Canadian. 



Everything is useful in the mulberry tree. Its leaves 



other hand ; by this simple contrivance the twigs and branches 

 were taken off with ease, and so smoothly as not to lacerate the 

 bark and injure the appearance of the tree. 



* See the leaf in Figure 2, Plate 2. 



