MULBERRY TREES 91 



ments to repeated attempts and repeated 

 failures to cultivate silk-worms with profit. 



Chelsea Park, which once extended from the 

 King's Road to Fulham Road, and from Church 

 Street to Park Walk, was taken in 1721 by a 

 " Park Company " and planted with Mulberry- 

 trees as food for silk-worms. Possibly the 

 Huguenot settlers who had market gardens in 

 Chelsea, and silk-looms in Spitalfields, may 

 have suggested the venture. Many of these 

 trees were still to be seen before the ground was 

 prepared for Elm Park Gardens in 1875. 



Years before the planting of Chelsea Park, 

 James I had made a Mulberry garden where 

 the King's Road originally began (Buckingham 

 Palace Gardens), 1 and another at Theobalds, 2 

 and had sent peremptory orders all over England 

 to plant Mulberry-trees for silk-culture. 



From the time (about 550 A.D.) when 

 Justinian had silk- worms' eggs smuggled into 

 Constantinople from China in a bamboo stick, 

 and made silk-culture a royal monopoly, the 

 bright sheen of silk seems to have had an 

 attraction for royalty. 



But all attempts, whether by kings or others, 

 to make silk-culture in England profitable have 

 failed. It may be due to England's dull skies, 

 or to the absence of cheap labour, or but that 

 is only conjecture to an attempt to combine 

 the cultivation of silk with that of a pleasant 



1 In a letter to The Field newspaper, December 24, 1921, it is 

 stated that an old Mulberry-tree in Buckingham Palace Garden 

 has a label : " Planted in 1609 by James I." 



2 The Hon. Lady Cecil, in London Parks and Gardens, says that 

 in 1618 a sum of 50 was paid to the head gardener at Theobalds 

 for making a place for the King's silk-worms. 



