MULBERRY. 247 



which in this district is invariably of the red sort. It is 

 preferred to the white fruited kind, as being a later 

 shooter, and better adapted to the periods of the worms' 

 life, which would be endangered from late changes of 

 weather, if forced out of its shell at the time the white 

 mulberry produces its leaves : besides, it is the opinion of 

 silk-workers, that worms fed with the red mulberry pro- 

 duce a more compact heavy silk, than those that live 

 upon the leaves of the white one. I am apt to think this 

 a vulgar prejudice, unwarranted by experience, as the 

 Chinese, Piedmontese, and Languedocians, prefer the 

 white sort. In order to provide food for them in cases 

 of a blight among mulberry-trees, other leaves have been 

 tried, and bramble-tops have been found the best succe- 

 daneum. In the management of this produce, the Cala- 

 brese are much inferior to the Tuscans, who, though many 

 degrees farther north, contrive to have two hatchings or 

 seasons in a year. These silkworm-houses are the property 

 of respectable families in Reggio, who furnish rooms, 

 leaves, eggs, and every necessary implement ; take two- 

 thirds of the profit, and leave the other for the attendants. 

 A succession of eggs is imported from Leghorn, and other 

 places, to renew the breed, and by frequent changes keep 

 up the quality of the silk. Lizards are great enemies to 

 the silkworms in Italy ; this, and the tyranny exercised 

 by lords in that country, would not be felt in England. 

 A tax, also, has been laid on every mulberry-tree, which 

 caused many hundred to be cut down." 



Nievhoff says, in his " History of China," that " in 

 the province of Chekiang are several woods consisting of 

 mulberry-trees, which the inhabitants cut every year, that 

 so they may not grow up to any largeness ; for they find 

 by experience, that the leaves of the lower trees make 

 the best silk : so that by this only means, all that keep 

 silkworms know very well how to distinguish the first 



