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Oje Crea^urg af WatKiiy. 



758 



'David came upon the Philistines, and 

 smote them over against the mulberry- 

 trees.' It is therefore evident that the mul- 

 berry must have been well known to the 

 Jews at that time, otherwise it would not 

 have been mentioned by the sacred histo- 

 rian for the purpose of indicating the par- 

 ticular locality of a battle. 



Mulberries are mentioned by the early 

 Greek writers, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, 

 and Galen ; and among the Romans by Vir- 

 gil, Horace, Pliny, &c. All these writers 

 are supposed to refer to the Black Mulberry, 

 M. nigra, which must have been the spe- 

 cies first employed for feeding the silk- 

 worm after its introduction to "Western 

 Asia and the South of Europe. Dr. Tozzetti 

 states that the introduction of the White 

 Mulberry into Italy is of a date long poste- 

 rior to that of the silkworm. These were im- 

 ported into Sicily in 1148, by King Ruggie- 

 ri, after he had conquered Thebes, Athens, 

 and Corinth. The Lucchese are said to 

 have learned the art of rearing them from 

 the Sicilians, and introduced it into Flo- 

 rence, when in 1315 they took refuge there 

 from the sack of their own city. Pog- 

 nini has, however, proved that silk was 

 produced in Florence in and previous to 

 the year 1225, and from Italian histories 

 and chronicles it appears that there were 

 silk factories there before 1266. From Si- 

 cily Mulberry-trees were brought to France, 

 about 1494. The Black Mulberry is men- 

 ' tioned by Tusser in 1557 ; and it is stated 

 j that the first trees were planted at Syon 

 I House in 1548, but the first Duke of North- 

 umberland said, previous to 1824, that be 

 could trace these trees back three centu- 

 ries. Indeed there is every reason to sup- 

 pose that as very old Mulberry-trees were 

 found near monasteries, they had been in- 

 troduced by the monks whilst they were in 

 possession of these establishments. Bacon 

 enjoyed in London the shade of a mulberry 

 tree ; and Shakspeare, as is well known, 

 had a favourite one at Stratford-on-Avon. 

 We have seen two others that were raised 

 from this celebrated tree and planted 

 by Garrick at his A r illa near Hampton 

 Court, where they are, or were very lately, 

 still alive. They had been planted in line 

 with hollies, apparently of the same age, 

 and were the common Black Mulberry. The 

 trees had been reared with taller stems 

 than usual, but had been blown down and 

 were prostrate when we saw them ; never- 

 theless, as the Mulberry is very tenacious 

 of life, vigorous shoots were rising perpen- 

 dicularly from their stems, and these with 

 care might form large trees. The planting 

 of mulberry-trees was much encouraged by 

 King James I., not so much for the fruit as 

 for the rearing of silkworms ; but that has 

 never been successfully carried on in this 

 country on a large scale. 



M. alba, the White Mulberry, is a native 

 of China, and of the north of India accord- 

 ing to some authors ; but in the latter, Dr. 

 Royle states {Botany of the Himalayan 

 Mountains, p. 337) that it is not found wild. 

 It is said to have been unknown to the an- 

 cients, although some allusion is made to 



its fruit in their writings. In the Journal 

 of the Horticultural Society (ix. 170), it is 

 mentioned that 'a variety of the White 

 Mulberry, said to be delicious eating, but 

 unknown in Europe, is now abundant in 

 Beloochistan, Affghanistan, and probably 

 in Persia, and apparently of very ancient 

 cultivation there. It is therefore by no 

 means impossible that some knowledge of 

 it may have reached such of the ancient 

 writers as may have been in the East or 

 had communication with it.' It is com- 

 monly supposed that cuttings of the White 

 Mulberry were first brought into Tuscany 

 from the Levant, by Francesco Buonvicini, 

 in 1434. In the following year a law for 

 encouraging its cultivation was made in 

 Italy ; and in the course of the fifteenth 

 century the White Mulberry had gradually, 

 but entirely, superseded the Black as far 

 as regards its cultivation for the feeding 

 of silkworms, although for about two hun- 

 dred years previously the Black Mulberry 

 had supplied the food of the silkworms 

 which produced the silk spun in Europe. 

 The tree grows to the height of twenty 

 or thirty feet, and has heart-shaped or 

 ovate undivided or lobed serrated and 

 rather glossy leaves. The fruit is white 

 or pale red. The tree is of more rapid 

 growth than the M. nigra, and its leaves 

 contain more of the glutinous milky sub- 

 stance resembling caoutchouc which gives 

 tenacity to silk produced by the worms 

 which feed on them, and is found in all 

 plants on which they exist. The White 

 Mulberry and its varieties are more tender 

 than the Black, which, as above stated, has 

 withstood for more than three hundred 

 years our severest winters ; but not so the 

 White, for in most winters its shoots are 

 killed back more or less, and in less than 

 thirty years the tree becomes very stunted. 

 Hence without due precautions it could 

 not be grown in this climate to supply food 

 for silkworms. If cut down, however, like 

 raspberry canes, the White Mulberry push- 

 es again very rapidly, and if not constantly 

 nipped almost in the bud, a profusion of 

 leaves would soon be produced. 



Herein, we suppose, must have lain the 

 error by which a British Irish and Colonial 

 Silk Company, formed in 1825, must have 

 failed, independent of other adverse causes 

 which may have existed. This company 

 imported 26,000 White Mulberry trees from 

 the south of France into Ireland, and soon 

 afterwards 200,000 more. The speculation 

 however, proved unsuccessful ; though we 

 know from experience that fine silk has 

 been abundantly produced in Britain, the 

 silkworms being fed on leaves of the Black 

 Mulberry, those of the White Mulberry 

 and its varieties, and of the Osage orange, 

 being used as occasional substitutes. The 

 deaths of the worms under such condi- 

 tions have not been above three percent. 

 In such a company the question of success 

 would resolve itself into two heads :— 1st, 

 the proper management of the Mulberry 

 plantations, which would be very easy ; and 

 2ndly, the price of labour. The labour 

 might be performed by otherwise unera- 



