THE MULBERRY 29 



diameter. The buds seldom unfold till May, when all 

 danger from frost is over, and PHny seems to suggest 

 the entirely unwarrantable etymology of Morm from 

 mora, delay, on this account. " Other trees," he says, 

 " blossom and bud but late, while the fruit comes to 

 maturity with great rapidity. The Mulberry, for 

 example, which is the very last to bud of all cultiv- 

 ated trees, and does so only when the cold weather is 

 gone, has for this reason been pronounced the wisest 

 among the trees." 



This, no doubt, was the. suggestion for Mrs. 

 Craik's poem : — 



" 0, the Mulberry-tree is of trees the queen ! 

 Bare long after the rest are green ; 

 But as time steals onwards, while none perceives 



Slowly she clothes herself with leaves 



Hides her fruit under them, hard to find. 



* * * * 



But by-and-by, when the flowers grow few 



And the fruits are dwindling and small to vievir 



Out she comes in her matron grace 

 With the purple myriads of her race ; 

 Full of plenty from root to crown, 

 Showering plenty her feet adown, 

 Wliile far over head bang gorgeously 

 Large luscious berries of sanguine' dye, 

 For the best grows highest, always highest, 

 Upon the Mulberry-tree." 



Few people are aware of the vigorous tenacity 

 of life in old woody portions of the Mulberry. 

 We have known large limbs, several inches in 

 diameter, which had been accidentally broken 

 from a fine old Mulberry-tree in mid-winter, to be 

 planted and to sprout into leaf nearly eighteen 



