110 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [March, 



in its origin, is a tender plant from southern Asia ; and as that 

 is now sufficiently sure to warrant its cultivation, we may hope 

 that the Perottet mulberry may in like manner become a deni- 

 zen of our soil. The plant is, in itself, after all reasonable 

 abatements are made, of such extraordinary value that every 

 inquiry and effort should be made, by which its security might 

 be accomplished. 



The hazard of its destruction is not in proportion to the 

 intensity of the cold. The season of greatest danger seems to 

 be at the first coming of frosts. Then if the growth is luxu- 

 riant and the wood has not become matured, it perishes with 

 the cold. Attempts have been made to preserve it by cutting 

 the shoots near the ground in the autumn, and then covering 

 the root with earth ; this has not succeeded to secure them. 

 Yet there are well authenticated cases in which the trees have 

 been taken up, and then deposited under a wall with the roots 

 merely covered with earth, and they have survived the winter 

 well. This was done in Manchester, Conn. On the same 

 farm, an attempt was made by cutting off the shoots and leav- 

 ing the roots in the ground without covering, to test their 

 hardiness. It was unsuccessful. The farmer attributed their 

 loss in a degree, to a heavy rain immediately after they were 

 topped, by which he supposed the cut ends became saturated 

 with water which was followed by a severe frost. The fact 

 of their destruction was undoubted. 



John Macomber, in Westport, Bristol County, whose nursery 

 I visited, reports, that in the cold year of 1835-6, about one 

 half of his Perottet mulberry survived the winter ; and of 

 those which were engrafted upon the white mulberry, not 

 more than eight out of a hundred perished. 



William Kenrick, of Newton, near Boston, whose experi- 

 ence and skill, as a nursery man, are well known, in a recent 

 private letter to me, says, " I have several trees of the Morus 

 Multicaulis, standing on Nonantum Hill, in an elevated and 

 bleak situation, trees now of considerable size, which, unpro- 

 tected, have borne well the severity of our late winters. In 



