31 



AS TO SOIL. 



It may not be inopportune here to make a few 

 general remarks upon the subject of soil. Al- 

 though the young trees for the first year or two, 

 would be evidently improved in their growth by 

 being placed in rich dry loamy soil, yet all expe- 

 rience proves that the plant after it shall have at- 

 tained a few years of age, grows luxuriantly in 

 every kind of soil. Mr. Smith has seen the tree in 

 every variety of soil, from the poorest to the rich- 

 est, and has been able to observe no other differ- 

 ence in its foliage than a more firm texture in 

 that which grew on poor land, than in that reared 

 on rich; and it is uniformly admitted that a dry, 

 stony or sandy soil, is preferable to a rich one. 



Here a remark presents itself to our mind, 

 which we feel bound in duty to make. It is 

 known to every intelligent man, that in each 

 county of most of the old states, there are thou- 

 sands and tens of thousands of acres of worn- 

 out lands, which are either grown over with 

 scrubby oaks, or pines, or covered with that em- 

 blem of a heart-broken soil, the sedge-grass. Such 

 fields, barren and worthless as they may seem 

 in the eye of one who has been used to looking at 

 fields dressed in their brightest and rno-t luxuri- 

 ent array of verdure, may all be converted into 

 sources of wealth, by being formed into Mulberry 

 plantations or orchards; by simply manuring 

 the young plants in the drill, in case of hedges, 

 or'in the holes in the event of standard trees, 

 with rich compost or loam, or even by manuring 

 with half rotten stable or barn-yard manure ; and 

 it should be recollected, that when once started 

 in this way, the young Mulberry will require 

 scarcely any thing further from the hands of 

 the cultivator, but to keep it clean and watered, 

 as may be seen in our remarks under the 

 preceding heads. All the subsequent manuring 

 whether they be planted in hedges, or in stand- 

 ard trees, which they will require, will more than 

 repay him by their yield for all the labour he 

 may put upon them. A crop of potatoes, oc- 

 casionally, well manured between the rows, fol- 

 lowed by clover, which can be cut one year and 

 ploughed in the next, will be all that will be ne- 

 cessary to secure to the trees, permanent, vigor- 

 ous growth, and plentiful produce of foliage. 



AS TO MODE OF CULTIVATION. 



As we have before remarked, we prefer the 

 hedge form, and would keep no more standard 

 trees than might be necessary to secure supplies 

 of seed, to meet contingencies. 



PERIOD WHEN LEAVES MAY BE FED. 



The trees should not be deprived of their 

 leaves until the fourth year, and then they should 

 not be entirely stripped ; on the following year, 

 however, and the succeeding ones, they may be 

 treated as old trees, and all the leaves be taken 

 off when required for the food of worms ; an 

 acre in the hedge form, would, we believe, fur- 



nish sufficient foliage, after the fourth year, to 

 support the number of worms requisite to pro- 

 duce the quantity of silk, which forms the basis of 

 the calculations to be found under the proper head. 

 It is best, however, not to be too anxious in pull- 

 ing them before the plant has received some so- 

 lidity, and been placed in a situation to withstand 

 any violent demand upon its powers of production, 

 as by judicious attention for a year or two, and a 

 proper consulting of the demands of nature, the 

 tree will receive such an impetus as will ensure 

 to it a long life and luxuriant foliage. 



Some of the culturists in the eastern states, 

 are of opinion that leaves may be gathered at two 

 years old, provided those near the end of the 

 branches are left and the main stem be not 

 touched. Our opinion is, that such practice is 

 contrary to nature, and cannot be justified upon 

 any principles connected with reason or a just 

 economy of vegetable life. "Leaves," it has been 

 very happily said, "bear the same relation to trees 

 and plants, as the lungs to the bodies of men and 

 animals. A leafless tree dies soon ;" and, 

 therefore, that "not more than half of its leaves, 

 or at most two-thirds of them should be strip- 

 ped." 



YIELD OF FOLIAGE PROFIT OF THE CULTURE, 



fcfi. 



It is impossibe to ascertain with any thing like 

 accuracy the quantity of leaves which an acre 

 of Mulberry trees will yield ; but still we can 

 approximate sufficiently near to found a calcu- 

 lation upon it. We will here array some of the 

 various authorities upon this branch of the sub- 

 ject. 



1. It is stated in the Memoir submitted by 

 Mr. Bailiff Hout, of Manheim, to the Agricultu- 

 ral Society of the Grand Dutchy of Baden, that 

 a White Mulberry tree, 20 years old, planted in 

 a proper soil, produces on an average, two quin- 

 tals of foliage, (200 Ibs.,) and that seven quintals, 

 700 Ibs., are required for 40 Ibs. of cocoons. 



2. It is computed by Mr. D'Homergue that 

 each tree [standard] at 6 years of age will yield 

 30 Ibs. of leaves, which he proposes should be set 

 at 6 feet square apart, properly cultivated and 

 nurtured. 



3. The Editor of this Manual, assumes the 

 following, it being the best result at which his 

 mind could arrive, after the most careful exami- 

 nation of various authorities that is, that a tree, 

 as a standard, four years of age, well cultivated, 

 will yield 20 Ibs. of foliage, that at 6 years of 

 age it will yield 30 Ibs., and that if planted in 

 hedge-form, an SLTG of land will yield an 

 amount of leaves when six years of age more than 

 equal to the support of 540,000 worms, that is 

 he believes that each tree at 4 years, will yield 

 4 bis. of leaves, and at 6 years will yield 7 Ibs. 

 of leaves, and that its capacity to yield will in- 

 crease by the time the hedge shall have attained 



