118 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [March, 



strong ; and is relished by the worms. The tree is nearly of 

 an average size with the Multicauhs. Its growth is most lux- 

 uriant, where I have seen it engrafted into the stocks of 

 the white mulberry, many of the upright shoots the last 

 autumn measuring from nine to eleven feet, and the side 

 shoots six and seven feet in length. This was the growth of 

 the summer. The tree, from the testimony of the original 

 proprietors, though standing in a most exposed location, has 

 never suftered from the winter ; and within my own knowl- 

 edge the last autumn, after a frost which destroyed the Perottet 

 mulberry to the ground, the shoots of this tree were unin- 

 jured even at the very points or tips. The specimens of 

 reeled silk and of cocoons, which have been produced from 

 the foliage of this variety, have been excellent. This tree 

 appears to be an accidental variety ; and should the expecta- 

 tions which have been formed of it be to any considerable 

 degree realized, it will prove an acquisition of the most emi- 

 nent importance and value to New England. It has been 

 propagated hitherto only by budding or engrafting ; and the 

 plants, which I saw at Chaplin, in Conn., had been engrafted 

 into stocks of the white mulberry three or four years old.* 



IV. Mode of Managing and Cultivating the Improved 

 Varieties. — It will be proper in this place that I should speak 

 of a mode of management both in respect to the Perottet and 

 the Canton, by which the caprices and rigors of the seasons 

 may be defied. This consists in taking up these trees in the 

 autumn and burying the roots in sand in the cellar for the winter ; 

 or in burying the roots and covering the branches, or indeed 

 without covering the branches, burying the roots in some part of 

 the field where they grow, where they will not be liable to be 

 flooded with water, and especially to the alternations of freezing 

 and thawing. For this purpose, a rough board shed would be 

 highly useful. In the spring, the trees may be replanted. 

 Thus the branches or shoots may be cut off, the root set out, 

 and the branches laid down, in which case every bud may be 



* Appendix O. 



