344 GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



Morus — Mulberry. 



This genus includes two species worthy of cultivation 

 on account of their fruit, both hardy deciduous trees, rip- 

 ening their berries in May, with the later strawberries. 

 The fruit is of very agreeable flavor, and of abundant sub- 

 acid juice. It is cooling, laxative, and wholesome for, 

 like the strawberry, it does not undergo the acetous fer- 

 mentation. An agreeable wine may be made of the juice. 



All the species of the mulberry are of the easiest culture, 

 and are generally propagated by cuttings of the branches or 

 roots. The former should be shoots of the last season, 

 having one joint of old wood ; they may be three feet 

 long, and buried half their depth in the soil. The tree 

 requires little or no pruning. The soil should be a rich, 

 deep, sandy loam. The fruit falls when ripe, hence, when 

 the tree commences bearing, the surface below should be 

 kept in short turf, that the fruit may be pickled from the 

 clean grass. The black mulberry, morus nigra, is a na- 

 tive of Persia, and is a slow-growing, low-branched tree, 

 with large, tough leaves, often five-lobed, producing large 

 and delicious fruit, frequently an inch and a half long, 

 and an inch across ; black and fine-flavored. Tree a very 

 poor grower. 



Morus KubjOL. — Is a native of our woods ; leaves large, 

 rough, and generally heart-shaped ; fruit an inch long, 

 sweet and pleasant, but much inferior to the last. The 

 vigorous growth and fine spreading head of this species, 

 makes it deserving of culture as an ornamental tree. If 

 the cherry is planted near the house, and the mulberry a 

 little more remote, the latter will often attract the birds 

 from the more valuable fruit. There is an everbearing 

 variety of this, very desirable for affording a succession 

 of fruit until frost. Mr. Charles Downing has also another 

 variety, said to be nearly equal to the black in flavor. 



