MULBERRY FAMILY 
tand 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 yeais 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 andit 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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