48 



Cover the seed but half an inch deep, and stamp or 

 roll the ground immediately, that the earth may retain 

 sufficient moisture at its surface. Carefully hoe and 

 weed during summer, and late in autumn protect with a 

 slight covering of straw, leaves or evergreens; or take 

 up the plants, and secure them in a cellar till spring. 

 This protection, during the first winter, is alike neces- 

 sary with every variety of mulberry ; but after the first 

 winter, protection is no longer required. 



At twoyears of age even at a year old, if the mulber- 

 ries have grown well, they are to be transplanted, that 

 they may throw out lateral roots. The soil mustxbe 

 rich, and the trees may be set in rows four feet asunder, 

 and 10 inches or a foot distant in the row. Many have 

 found that they make a greater growth to cut them down 

 to two inches above ground. 



In the second spring the trees are set in rows four' 

 feet asunder, in a rich soil, and a foot distant in the row. 

 By this mode almost exclusively is the Common White 

 Mulberry raised, the Common English Black, or Nigra, 

 and the American Red Mulberry. But the Morus Mul- 

 ticaulis, otherwise the Chinese .Black Mulberry, is culti- 

 vated exclusively by layers, by cuttings, by inoculating 

 or grafting. 



LAYERS. Layers are the side shoots bent down, and 

 secured by hooks, and partly covered with earth, their 

 extreme ends only being left out, but previously they 

 should be tongued, an operation which consists in cut- 

 ting the shoot half in two below a bud or eye, and slit- 

 ting it upwards an inch or more according to the size. 

 This is performed at the bend, and the tongue is kept 

 open by a piece of pebble, and the part covered with 

 fresh earth and pressed down. Thus managed in spring, 

 or at mid-summer, they soon take root, and are separated 

 from the main plant in autumn. 



CUTTINGS, are the twigs or branches of the young 

 wood, or part young and part old, cut in lengths of 

 about six inches, and close below an eye; these are set 

 more than two-thirds of their length beneath a humid 



