BARK AND SHOOTS Of MULBERRY. 59 



this tree for manufacturing purposes, asserts that he 

 procured from its young and tender branches a beau- 

 tiful vegetable silk. The method which he pursued 

 was to cut the bark during the time the tree was in 

 sap, to steep it in water, and to beat it with wooden 

 mallets. By this process he separated from the 

 woody part, fibres which had an exceedingly silky 

 appearance, and this they retained after being woven 

 into cloth. 



The fibres of the bark* of many other trees have 

 been made to render materials for clothing. In 

 almost every country indigenous plants may be found 

 which can be advantageously applied to this purpose. 

 The pages of our voyagers and travellers fully 

 reveal to us the vast riches of nature in this respect, 

 and we shall find almost every people, whom civilized 

 man, in the pride of his refinement, is pleased to call 

 savage, exercising their ingenuity in converting vege- 

 table fibres, with more or less of preparation, into 

 articles of dress and domestic use. It is not our 

 design to go into any minute enumeration of all the 

 plants which might be made applicable to this pur- 

 pose, nor even of those which are already used in 

 various countries. One example taken from among 

 the islands of the South Sea, may in some measure 

 serve to show the nature of the expedients employed 

 in making different fibrous substances subservient to 

 the wants of the ingenious natives. 



The Otaheitans make cloth of the bark of the 

 paper mulberry-tree which has just been noticed. 

 The materials for another kind, inferior to the first 

 in whiteness and softness, is obtained from the bread- 

 fruit tree. A third sort is made from a plant resem- 

 bling a fig-tree. This is coarse and harsh, and of 

 the colour of the darkest brown paper. Although 

 apparently of an inferior description^ it has a quality 



