1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



711 



one.* I belieave that I can originate a new kind 

 of morns 7nulticaulis quite as goad as the old, 

 from the red mulberry. I design to make the ex- 

 periment next summer. For a commencement, I 

 can obtain from trees h'om which some of the 

 larger branches liad been accidentally broken off, 

 a considerable uumbcr of shoots five and a half 

 feet in length, the growth of last sunmier — and I 

 can also get a few sprouts of a similar growth and 

 age with the roots attached. 



Yours respect flilly, 



JOHN WILLIABIS. 



COMMERCIAL REPORT. 



Less business than usual has been transacted in 

 Virginia during the present winter. Supplies of 

 produce were small — foreign markets unliivorable 

 — the results of previous transactions generally 

 losing — and withal, money scarce. 



The communiiy is still kept in suspense as to the 

 increase ol" banking capital within this common- 

 wealth; while the influx of bank notes from ad- 

 joining states now furnishes a considerable portion 

 of the circulating medium in some parts of the 

 country, and a depreciated one'in others. We thus 

 endure the evils, without deriving the benefits at- 

 tendant on such institutions, and ofi'er inducements 

 to our neighbors to carry to excess, what we re- 

 fuse to ourselves in moderation. 



The quotations of produce have not varied much 

 since the commencement of the year. The gener- 

 al rantre of prices is, lor tobacco 83 to ^7; cotton, 

 13 to IGc; wheat, 81 75 to 82 15; flour, glQi to 

 $12; corn, ^4 50 to ^4 75. Importations of foreign 

 grain into our northern ports continue to be large 

 and profitable. Flax seed has arrived from In- 

 din, Charleston is receiving supplies of hayli-om 

 France, and among the commodities recenily im- 

 ported from that country, sugar (not ot the beet,) 

 may be enumerated. This, however, is not more 

 strange than the imjiortation into James river, of 

 coal i'rom Great Britain and Nova Scotia. 



British ship owners carry on a thriving trade 

 from our ports in timber and other bulky articles, 

 which acquire the character of colonial produce by 

 a slight deviation from a direct voyage, and are 

 admitted into Great Britain free of duty; while si- 

 milar importations by American vessels are vir- 

 tually prohibited. The effect ot this system re- 

 quires no illustration. 



The pressure for money which has so long pre- 

 vailed in our largecities, continues with little abate- 

 ment. Severe as this has been in N. York and 

 Philadelphia, it is a remarkable fact, and highly 

 creditable to the mercantile community, that 

 scarcely any failures have taken place in those ci- 

 ties. The excessive rate of 1 1-2 per cent per 

 month interest is stili current. Real estate has not 

 there declined in price, and all articles of subsis- 

 tence are high. A recent attempt in New York 

 to reduce the price, by diminishing the quantity, 

 did not succeed; and it is to behope'dthat the mob 

 will not repeat the experiment. 



In Mobile, the ftictois, or commission merchants 

 for the sale of cotton for the planters, have suffered 

 great inconvenience, and in many instances been 

 ruined by coming under advances flir croiis, the 

 receipt of which was, in the first instance, retarded 



by low water, and subsequently by the want of 

 confidence created by failures among the merchants 

 to which this very delay gave rise. Enormous 

 speculations in real estate probably contributed to 

 produce similar disasters. The efiTect of heavy 

 inveslmenis made by planters in lands and negroes 

 at high prices, on long credit, will probably be de- 

 veloped when the price of cotton shall decline; 

 which, from present appearances, is not a remote 

 contingency. Such a reverse in the prosperity of 

 that country, however, cannot be of long duration, 

 when the increasing population and productiveness 

 of the western states is considered. Internal ex- 

 changes continue unregulated, but the rates are 

 not so excessive as they were. The current of 

 specie continues to and fro, benefiting those only 

 who are emploj'ed in its transportation. 

 February 24. X. 



* If seed from tfie artificial tree be used, tlie plant 

 re-appears in its original form. 



MORUS MULTICAULIS NOT PRODUCED FROM 

 ITS OWN SEEDS. 



The following statement agrees with what we were 

 first to inform our countrymen of, in this journal, more 

 than two years ago, on the authority of an experiment 

 reported in the Jlnnal.es de r^griatUure Francaise, that 

 the morus mvliicaulis had been found to be merely a 

 variety of white mulberry, and did not reproduce its 

 own kind by seeds. This very important fact (if true) 

 we have again and again endeavored to impress on the 

 agricultural public — but apparent!)' to no puopose. The 

 anxiety to obtain seeds of the morus mvliicaulis has 

 been so great, that encouragement has been thereby 

 afforded to extensive frauds, by the seller substituting 

 seeds of another kind. But even if the seeds had 

 been what they were supposed to be, if from trees of 

 the true multicaulis, the failure and disappointment 

 would probably have been as great. 



But though believing that the seeds of this plant are 

 not be relied on for reproducing their own kind, we 

 are not inclined in any case to trust to reported opin- 

 ions, or authority that is the least doubful, when the 

 facts can be tested by accurate experiment. We have 

 the means of making such an experiment, in seeds of 

 the morus multicaulis taken last summer from trees 

 which grew within the enclosure of the high walls 

 which surround the Penitentiary of Virginia, and near 

 which no other kind of mulbarry grew, to affect the 

 seeds by a mixture of the fecundating farina. If 

 these seeds will not produce the morus multicaulis, it 

 may be thereafter safely pronounced, that seeds are 

 not only not to be relied on to produce this kind, but 

 that the result of reproduction of the like kind rarely, 

 if ever, occurs. 



" This mulberry, it is now well ascertained, is a hy- 

 brid variety, and not a true species — the seed will not 

 produce its like. We have been informed by a gen- 

 tleman who purchased a plant, three or four years 

 since, of some nurserymen of our vicinity, that with 

 considerable care he raised quite a number of seeds. 

 The plant was taken up upon the appearance of severe 

 weather, and placed in a celler where the frost did not 

 penetrate — the roots were slightly covered with earth. 

 Pursuing this course two succeeding winters, it attain- 

 ed the size of a large shrub with numerous ramifying 

 branches — the third season it produced seeds. No 



