1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



507 



'•The mulberry tree which is said to have been 

 brougli! froir. the Philippines byM. Perroitet, is a 

 tree of the f5econcl degree of size, which I met 

 Willi in 1800_ in the nursery of M. Nerard the 

 younger, at V"aise. This same variety has yielded 

 fruit for more than fifteen years at the Acclimating 

 Nursery of the Rhone." 



M. Henon declares ihat he liad seen at Kcul- 

 }y, in the garden of Rast de Maupas, the mul- 

 berry tree li'om which had been propagated those 

 of Nerard. This tree, as well as many foreign 

 oaks and walnuts, has been cut down since the 

 death of the proprietor. 



The statement in the Lynns journal was sup- 

 fiosed to have been (bunded on a mistake of the 

 species, and that the trees reported totie the multi- 

 caulis were some of the varieties of either the 

 white or black mulberry, or the Italian. The So- 

 ciety [Jxoyale ct dintrale d'' ^Agriculture,'] having 

 charged me to examine and report on this subject, 

 I have assured myself of the identity of the spe- 

 cies cultivated at L}'ons with that of the Jardin 

 dii lioi of Paris, brought by M. Perrottet, I 

 have asked lor and obtained specimens, and have 

 now the honor of exhibiting them to the society. 

 They are asibllows: 



No. 1, ia the morus mullicaulis of the school 

 of the Jardin du Jioi, imported by M. Perrottelj 



No. 2, that of the mulberry of Lyons; 



No. 3, that cultivated at M. Nerard's at Vaise; 



No. 4, that of M. Seringe; 



No. 5, that of Messrs. AudiberLof Thonville. 



Jt would be difiicult to find distinct characters 

 amongall these mulberry trees, or believe them to 

 bg other than the same species. If the season 

 had been suitable, I would have been able, to 

 complete the conviction, to produce the flowers 

 and fruits; but I believe that this additional proof 

 is not necessary, and that we may rest upon the 

 testimony of the able botanists and zealous culti- 

 vators, Messrs. Seringe, Madiot, and Henon. 



Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, are samples of other 

 mulberry trees cultivated in France, and in the 

 Jardin du Roi. They all differ from the morus 

 muliicatilis. 



Knowing that Poivre, the able and upright ad- 

 ministrator of our possessions in India, had made 

 many voyages to China and to Cochin-China, and 

 that he had constantly been occupied with the cul- 

 ture and naturalization of useful vegetables, ! had 

 supposed that it was he who had first introduced 

 the morus multicaulis in the neighborhood of L}'- 

 ons; and I was confirmed in that opinion, when I 

 afterwards learned that Rast de Slaupas, who cul- 

 tivated this tree at Ecully, and who gave it to Ne- 

 rard the father, had been the physician and inti- 

 mate frientl r>[' Poivre. Favorable circumstances 

 perhaps will furnish me with positive proof of this; 

 and that if M. Perrottet has introduced this tree 

 into France about fourteen years since, that Poivre 

 also had brought it Ibrty or fifty years earlier. He 

 was long the governor of the Isle of France, 

 where he bought of the India'n Company a piece 

 of ground called JMontplaisir, of which he made 

 a maifnificent (jarden, in which he broualit toge- 

 ther the useful plants of llie two heuiisiiheres. 

 This garden, long after, as a traveller has stated, 

 was considered one of the wonders of the world. 

 A philanthropist as well as a ruler, Poivre did not 

 neirlect |)la!its which had no other merit than their 

 novelty; but he principally fixed his attention and 



lavished his cares upon the plants of known utility. 

 When afterwards retired at Freta, near Lyons, 

 he founded there a collection, drawn from the lour 

 quarters of tiie world.- 



It is unfortunate that after the death'of Poivre, 

 his garden did not find in his successor a zealous 

 cultivator, to preserve and especially to spread 

 abroad the plants which Poivre had collected. 

 The person who propagates a useful plant, makes 

 its value known, renders it popular and brings it 

 into general use, merits as much the gratitude of 

 the society, as he who may have merely intro- 

 duced it !i-om its remote native region. Thus the 

 potato had been known in Europe and in France 

 (or two centuries, without any benefit to the peo- 

 ple ; whilst that in (he last forty to fitly years, that 

 by the zeal of Parmentier, and since by our fellow 

 members Sagaret and Vilmorin, this vegetable has 

 been disseminated and cultivated in almost every 

 part of France, introduced mto every household, 

 and even upon the tables of the rich, France lias 

 not suffered the terrible scourge of famine which, 

 twice or thrice in each century, had before afHicted 

 the nation. Jaubie Saint-Hilairk. 



It can scarcely be supposed that a committee 

 chosen by the most distinguished agricultural so- 

 ciety in France, and the society also, with the spe- 

 cimens before them, could be mistaken as to the 

 identity of the several trees with the morus mul- 

 ticaulis; and the publicadon of the report, without 

 objection or contradiction then, or subsequently, 

 from any quarter, is sufficient confirmation of the 

 judgment of the committee. But though the fact 

 is well worthy of notice, as a matter of curiosity, 

 it vserves not in the slightest degree to diminish 

 the merit of Perrottet, the subsequent (and as he 

 himself, thought the earliest) discoverer and in- 

 troducer of the morus multicaulis into Europe. 

 And neither would the fact (if true) of Fonville's 

 having brought one of the them new plants to North 

 Carolina, among his other species of mulberry, 

 and its progeny having lingered through half a 

 century of neglect, and ignorance of its kind and 

 value, detract in the least from the credit due to 

 those who have made the value known, and thus 

 caused the extensive propagation of the tree in 

 Europe, and still more in this country. It was 

 our having taken this view of the subject which 

 prevented the bringing before the public at an ear- 

 lier time the report of M. Saint-Hilaire. For 

 though we went zealously and fully into the con- 

 troversy as to the introduction of the morus multi- 

 caulis into this country, it was to transfer the award 

 of merit from where it had been tiiisplaced, lo 

 where it was justly due; and lo decide the ques- 

 tion as to who had disseminated this plant and 

 extended its culture with a knowledge of its value, 

 and not merely as to who might have been the first 

 importer % chance, or one of the earliest possesors, 

 also by chance, and in ignorance of its value, or 

 without showing any zeal, or making nnv pffnrt, to 



