564 THE MULBERRY. 



SOUTER. 



Large, oblong, sometimes roundish. Skin peculiarly marked with 

 grayish dots, and pale and dark green stripes. Rind half an inch thick. 

 Flesh deep red to the centre. Flavor sugary and delicious, of the 

 best quality. Seed cream white, with a faint russet stripe around 

 the edge. Very productive. 



Originated in South Carolina. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE MULBERRY. 



Morus, Tourn. Urticacece, of botanists. 

 Murier, of the French ; Maulbeerbaum, German ; Moro, Italian ; Mord, Spanish. 



THE Mulberry is a hardy, deciduous fruit-tree, but little cultivated 

 in this country, though it is really a very considerable acquisition to our 

 list of summer fruits, and every garden of considerable size ought to 

 contain one or two trees. The fruit ripens in July, very soon after the 

 season of cherries. It is rarely picked from the trees, as it falls as soon 

 as ripe, and it is therefore the custom to keep the surface below it in 

 short turf, and the fruit is picked from the clean grass. Or, if the sur- 

 face is dug ground, it may be sown thickly with cress seed, six weeks 

 previously to the ripening of the fruit, which will form a temporary 

 carpet of soft verdure. 



The BLACK MULBERRY, or English Mulberry (Morus nigra, L.), is 

 a very celebrated old fruit-tree, originally from Asia, more or less com- 

 monly cultivated in all parts of Europe, but yet quite rare in this country. 

 Its growth is slow, and it seldom attains a height of more than twelve 

 or fifteen feet, forming a low, branching tree, with lobed leaves, but it is 

 very long lived, and there is a specimen in England, at the seat of the 

 Duke of Northumberland, 300 years old. In this country it is scarcely 

 hardy enough north of New York, except in sheltered situations. An 

 occasional extreme cold winter kills them; they are also subject to 

 canker and die off. 



The fruit is incomparably larger and finer than that of the Red Mul- 

 berry, being an inch and a half long, and nearly an inch across black, 

 and of delicious flavor. 



EVERBEARING. Originated here from seed of the Multicaulis. Tree 

 very vigorous and very productive, an estimable variety, and surpassed 

 by none except the Black English, and possesses the same rich subacid 

 flavor. It continues in bearing a long time. 



Fruit cylindric, one and a quarter of an inch long, and nearly half 

 an inch in diameter. Color maroon, or an intense blue black at full 

 maturity. Flesh juicy, rich, sugary, with a sprightly vinous flavor. 

 Hick's Everbearing, from Kentucky, is similar to the above. 



JOHNSON, a seedling from Ohio. Fruit very large, oblong cylindric ; 

 blackish color, subacid, and of mild, agreeable flavor. Growth of the 

 wood strong and irregular. Leaves uncommonly large. 



