52 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK II. COWS, sheep, and other cattle, especially young porkers, being boiled 

 ^•"^^t"^ with a little bran. The fruit is excellent to feed poultry. In sum, 

 whatever eats of them will with difficulty be reduced to endure any thing 

 else, as long as they can come by them. To say nothing of their other 

 sovereign qualities, as relaxing of the belly, being eaten in the morning, 

 and curing inflammations and ulcers of the mouth and throat, mixed with 

 mel rosarum, in which receipt they do best when taken before they are 

 over ripe. As for drink, the juice of the berry, mixed with cider-apples, 

 makes an excellent liquor both for colour and taste* 



10. To proceed with the leaf, for which the Mulberry is chiefly 

 cherished, the benefit of it is so great, that they are frequently let to farm 

 for vast sums ; so as one sole tree has yielded the proprietor a rent of 

 twenty shillings per annum for the leaves only, and six or seven pounds 

 of silk, worth as many pounds sterling, in five or six weeks, to those who 

 kept the worms. We know that, till after Italy had made silk above 

 a thousand years, they received it not in France, it being hardly yet an 

 hundred since they betook themselves to this manufacture in Provence, 

 Languedoc, Dauphine, Lionois, &c. and not in Orleanois till Henry the 

 Fourth's time : but it is incredible what a revenue it now amounts to in 

 that kingdom. About the same time, or a little after, it was that King 

 James did, with extraordinary care, recommend it to this nation by a 

 book of directions, acts of council, and all other princely assistance. — 

 But this did not take any more than the proposal of Henry the Fourth, 

 about the environs of Paris, who filled the highways, parks, and gardens 

 of France with the trees, beginning in his own gardens for encourage- 

 ment. Yet I say this could not be brought into example till this present 

 great monarch, by the indefatigable diligence of ^lonsieur Colbert, (super- 

 intendant of his Majesty's manufactures,) so successfully revived it, 

 that it is prodigious to consider what a happy progress they have made 

 in it ; to oui shame be it spoken, who have no other discouragements 

 from any difficulty whatever, but our sloth and want of industry ; since 

 wherever these trees will grow and prosper, the silk-worms will do so 

 also ; and they were likewise averse, and from the very same suggestions, 

 where now that manufacture flourishes in our neighbour countries. — 

 It is demonstrable, that Mulberries in four or five years may be made 

 to spread all over this land ; and when the indigent and young daugh- 

 ters in proud families are as wiHing to gain three or four shillings a-day 



