MULBERRY FAMILY 



land of so many of our fruits. Its berry is large, dark 

 purple, almost black, very juicy and delicious. Like all the 

 mulberries, its leaves vary apparently without law. The 

 tree is long-lived and many individuals in England are known 

 to be three hundred years old. In the grounds of Christ 

 Church College at Cambridge is one planted by Milton when 

 a student of the college and it still bears delicious fruit as 

 the writer can testify from personal experience. In Oxford, 

 in the Common Room Garden of Pembroke College, are two 

 mulberry trees which are said to have been planted before 

 the college was founded in 1624. 



The Black Mulberry has been known from the earliest 

 records of antiquity, which leads to the belief that it is one 

 of the first trees cultivated by man. It is related in the 

 Bible, II. Samuel, v. 23, that David came out against his 

 enemies from behind the mulberry trees, but there is always 

 a difficulty in identifying any tree mentioned by the ancient 

 authors unless its characteristics are expressly noted. Ovid, 

 however, evidently points out the Black Mulberry as the one 

 introduced in the story of Pyramis and Thisbe, and Pliny in 

 several ways seems to identify the tree. In addition to 

 much else he says, "Of all cultivated trees the mulberry is 

 the last that buds, which it never does until the cold weather 

 is past and it is therefore called the wisest of trees." 



The mulberry was very generally introduced into England 

 about 1605 because of an edict of James I. recommending the 

 rearing of silkworms and offering packets of mulberry seeds 

 to all who would sow them. But the royal knowledge was 

 imperfect and the seeds distributed were those of the Black 

 Mulberry which the silkworm will not willingly eat, instead 

 of the White Mulberry upon which the silkworm thrives. 



Shakespeare's Mulberry is referred to this period as it was 

 planted in 1609 in his garden at New Place, Stratford, In 

 Drake's Shakespeare, Mr. Drake mentions a native of Strat- 

 ford who remembered frequently to have eaten of the fruit 

 of this tree in his youth, some of its branches hanging over 

 the wall which divided that garden from his father's. Cer- 



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