A GARDEN IN VENICE 



and the mulberries see out generations of 

 Furlani. 



These mulberries are a source of income. We 

 have five trees large and wide-spreading. In their 

 season, July, they are purple black with delicious 

 fruit, their branches so laden that they are some- 

 times broken with the weight. When I bought 

 the garden I found that a family of Furlani came 

 yearly from the mountains of Friuli, paying a 

 rent of seventy lire for the right to pick and sell 

 the fruit — first, however, providing a supply for 

 the master's use. In addition to money they 

 bring, a relic perhaps of the old payment in kind, 

 two mountain cheeses, bound up in green-leaved 

 boughs — one of fresh, hard creamy curd, that is 

 generally eaten with sugar, the other smoked and 

 seasoned. I would not disturb their tenancy, and 

 the children of those days now carry on the trade 

 their father is no longer fit for. 



To pick the fruit is a stainful task that requires 

 skill. Unless well plucked a nearly empty skin 

 remains in the bungler's hands. The juice has 

 spurted on his arms and face and clothes. 

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