Xll 
PREFACE. 
going statements ; but every doubt on 
that head must cease, when it is known 
that though hitherto the white mulberry 
(for to that alone can we look as a profitable 
food for this animal) has not been an ob- 
ject of attention, yet it has been grown in 
almost every part of England with suc- 
cess. At this moment, in the very pre- 
cincts of London, a plantation of several 
thousands of these trees is in existence ; 
some of them not less than fifteen years 
of age, which, in spite of a soil, perhaps 
the most uncongenial that could have been 
selected, are flourishing, and have fur- 
nished leaves this present year, for the 
prosecution of experiments on a scale of 
some extent. 
These trees have been purchased by the 
British, Irish, and Colonial Silk Company, 
and will, in the course of the ensuing 
autumn, be removed to a better soil. 
During the last century, some French 
refugees, in the south of Ireland, made con- 
siderable plantations of this tree, and had 
begun the cultivation of silk with every 
appearance of the most perfect success; 
