THE CRANBERRY. 



593 



the horizontal manner, and must be little short 

 of a century old. The mulberry, until it is 

 moderated in growth by age, rarely fruits, and 

 hence, when treated as a wall fruit, it has to be 

 subjected to various species of mutilation, 

 such as ringing the branches, root-pruning, cut- 

 ting out half sections of the larger branches, 

 &c. The true reason, however, is that, like most 

 trees of the monoecious class, the young trees 

 often produce male blossom only for some years 

 after they are planted, yet afterwards become 

 exceedingly fruitful. Another peculiarity at- 

 tends this tree — the older it is, the more it in- 

 creases in productiveness, and on aged trees the 

 fruit is much larger and better flavoured than 

 on young ones. In regard to soil, much was 

 said about thirty years ago, and rich soils were 

 not only recommended, but the most powerful of 

 manures applied to its roots. One authority only, 

 but with him we do not agree, says, " No tree, 

 perhaps, receives more benefit from the spade 

 and the dunghill than the mulberry; it ought, 

 therefore, to be frequently dug about the roots, 

 and occasionally assisted with manure." — Wil- 

 liams, in Horticultural Transactions, vol. ii. p. 

 92. As an ornamental tree on the lawn it is 

 eminently deserving a place; but to cover a 

 south wall with a tree of this sort to the extent 

 of 100 feet or more, is, we think, a great waste 

 of space, that would be far better occupied with 

 Flemish pears. 



Pruning and training. — All the pruning stan- 

 dard mulberry - trees require is to keep the 

 branches moderately thin, and never to shorten 

 the young wood. When trained against a wall, 

 the horizontal mode is usually and very pro- 

 perly adopted. As the fruit is produced chiefly 

 on the shoots of the same year's growth which 

 spring from the wood of the previous year, and 

 sometimes on spurs formed on the two-year-old 

 wood, care must be taken to encourage these, 

 and as they are formed train them on the main 

 leaders, unless these are of a large diameter, 

 and so place the young wood too far from the 

 radiated heat from the wall, in which case the 

 fruit would derive little or no more benefit from 

 it than if the tree was grown as an open stan- 

 dard. But this state of things may be improved 

 by training the young wood close to the wall 

 between the larger branches, if there be room for 

 them; if not, train them to the upper and under 

 sides of the main branches, instead of to the 

 front or outer side of them. The best season 

 for pruning the mulberry is when the flower- 

 buds become visible in spring, for until that 

 time they cannot be readily distinguished from 

 the wood-buds. The mulberry is the latest of 

 all trees in coming into leaf in the spring; and 

 it has been remarked that, after the leaves have 

 attained the size of a sixpence, frost seldom 

 afterwards occurs. 



Insects and diseases. — The Black mulberry 

 may be said to be exempt from these in Britain. 

 The White mulberry (Morus alba) is cultivated 

 for the purpose of feeding silkworms with the 

 leaves. In Spain and Persia they prefer the 

 black variety, and in China both are grown 

 extensively for this purpose. 



The European names are— Moral, Spanish — 



Murier, French — Moerbezieboom, Dutch— Moro, 

 Italian — Maulbeerbaum, German — Schekowiza, 

 Russian. Tut, Persian — Tatai-iba, Brazilian. 



§ 6. — THE CRANBERRY. 



Of this excellent fruit there are two distinct 

 species, both of which have been more or less 

 cultivated. Vaccinium oxycoccus Linn., Oxycoc- 

 cus palustris Pursh., is a native of many of our 

 upland peat-bogs ; Oxycoccus macrocarpus is a 

 native of similar situations in North America. 

 Both have been cultivated in several gardens 

 most successfully during the last forty years, 

 about which period the late eminent Sir Joseph 

 Banks brought their cultivation into notice in 

 his garden at Smallberry Green, near Hounslow. 

 The American species was the one cultivated 

 by him, and the situation a small circular pond 

 in his garden, which we well remember having 

 seen in 1814; it yielded the previous year, upon 

 an area of 326 superficial feet, no less than 3^ 

 bushels of berries. The culture of both sorts is 

 identically the same; some, however, growing 

 them in dry soil, while others grow them in a 

 soil that is very damp. The American sort is 

 preferred, as yielding the larger crop, and the 

 common or European for a supposed superiority 

 in flavour. Either may be successfully grown 

 if planted in a border of peat-earth 18 inches 

 deep, and situated at the north side of a wall. 

 The plants can readily be purchased in the 

 nurseries, and if planted 1^ feet apart, will in a 

 few months become a matted surface of branches 

 interwoven together, and in that state yield 

 amazing crops of fruit. A bed once planted 

 will continue in bearing for almost an indefinite 

 length of time. In this way a very productive 

 border existed in the gardens of Charles Bar- 

 clay, Esq., Burryhill, Surrey. The margin of a 

 pond is an excellent situation for either sort, 

 and in such a situation a long narrow bed ex- 

 isted in the gardens of the late C. Labouchere, 

 at Hylands in Essex. A marginal border about 2 

 feet broad was formed round the edge of the 

 pond, and nearly level with its surface, so that 

 the roots were kept very moist without the 

 water covering the plants. Both sorts were 

 grown, and continued for years to yield abun- 

 dant crops without any renewal of the first- 

 formed peaty soil. Immense quantities of cran- 

 berries are annually imported to Britain, both 

 from America and Russia, a disbursement on 

 our part which might be saved, and the amount 

 earned by the peasantry around where the Brit- 

 ish kind grows in a natural state. So long ago 

 as the days of Lightfoot, the author of the first 

 " Flora Scotica," we find that from twenty to 

 thirty pounds' worth of the fruit was sold each 

 market-day for five or six consecutive weeks in 

 the small town of Langton, on the Cumberland 

 border, thus throwing a considerable amount of 

 capital into a poor and needy locality. 



If such, therefore, were the demand for this 

 fruit in a petty town like this, situated in a poor 

 and thinly - peopled locality, what might not 

 be made of it in many other places, in par- 

 ticular those convenient to railway transit, as 

 by that means the large manufacturing towns of 



