INDIGENOUS MULBERRY ABOUT POONA. 
563 
IsL Wliat kinds do the worms prefer I 
2d. What kinds will grow best as standard 
trees, and what are the best adapted for the 
field cultivation on the Bengal plan? 
6, It is with a view to decide the above 
questions that I wish to continue the subject 
brought forward by Mr. Shakespear. 1 was 
before aware of the system of cultivation 
pursued in Bengal so far as it is published in 
a work considered as authority “ On the 
Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal,” hut as 
there are some crude notions abroad in this 
Presidency on the subject of mulberry culti- 
vation, a decision of ti)ese questions from 
competent authority and experience may 
prevent much waste of time and capital. 
BENGAL CULTIVATION AS DE- 
SCRIBED BY MR. SHAKESPEAR. 
7. The Indian mulberry plant is not allowed 
to rise above a foot and a half or two feet. It 
is cut twice a day as required to feed the 
worms. The plant is thus exhausted in about 
the third year, and it is then rooted out, but is 
easily renewed by cuttings, and planted in 
rows with just room enough between to admit 
of the cultivator weeding, dressing, and 
earthing up the roots. 
EXPERIMENTAL CULTIVATION IN 
WESTERN INDIA. 
The mode introduced at Darwar and Poona 
about ten years since differs but little from 
that described opposite. Tlie mulberry cut- 
tings are allowed to grow about three or four 
feet high, and as they are always irrigated, 
they produce leaves at this height. They are 
not rooted out under seven years. I am my- 
self convinced that the more frequently this 
kind of mulberry is cut down, , the better and 
more tender leaves are produced, and that 
old trees become straggling, and produce in ■ 
feiior leaves. But my experience only 
amounting to four years, during which time 
I have cultivated the plant at Dapooree, my 
autho.ity may be thought insufficient. I 
therefore beg to submit the proposed Deccan 
plan for an opinion from Bengal. 
Plantations of mulberries, dasee, and per- 
haps also the bedasee, are now forming about 
Poona and Ahmednuggur upon the (2) Italian 
plan, the cuttings having struck, are trans- 
planted, and set from 8 to 12 feet apart, and 
trained up as standard trees, the leaves of 
which it is proposed not to gather for four 
years. 
8. The following information is desired 
from Bengal. 
1st. Has such a plan ever been tried in the 
Bengal provinces, and, if it has, with what 
success ? 
2d. Will the leaves be improved or other- 
wise, as food for the worms, in this climate, 
by being produced from old trees ? 
3d. Provided the trees and the leaves be 
improved by age, and produce a larger crop 
as they grow older, still will it be possible 
with any supposable rate of profit to com- 
pensate for the capital of a silk farm lying dead 
for four years, and in a country where labour 
is dearer than in Bengal and irrigation neces- 
sary ? I have to remark with regard to the 
two varieties of white mulberry before men- 
tioned, that they are of much slower growth 
than the common kind, and will probably 
make good standard trees. They do not so 
readily root from cuttings. I have found 
budding them on the common mulberry the 
most eligible way of propagating them, as a 
single bud inserted into a stock serves the 
purpose of fivo or six buds sa'crificed fora 
cutting ; besides gaining a year's growth by 
the age of the stock. This is of course only a 
temporary expedient to facilitate the quicker 
introduction of the plant into the country. 
I have the honour to be, &c. 
(Signed) Charles Lush, 
Siqjt. Botanic Garden, Dapooree. 
Dapooree, Poona, 3\st January , 1833. 
GENUS MORUS. 
Species that have been cultivated or propos- 
ed to be cultivated for feeding silk worms. 
1. FRUIT ROUNDISH. 
1. Morns nigra. The common officinal. 
Black mulberry (not in India ?), used in some 
parts of France and Italy for feeding worms. 
The only species common in England. 
2. FRUIT CYLINDRICAL. 
A. Fruit very long. 
2. Morn's latifolia. Leaves rough, various- 
ly divided. A large tree common in gardens 
in the Deccan. The worms do not flourish 
on it. 
B. Fruit short. 
3 . Morns Indica. Leaves smooth, entire, or 
divided, heart-shaped, equal at the base ; 
fruit deep purple ; stem shrubby and diffuse. 
VAR. DASEE. 
2. Bedasee. (Is this morns Tartarica of 
some Botanists ?) 
4 . Morns alba. Leaves smooth, entire, or 
divided, heart-shaped, unequal at the base ; 
fruit whitish or variously coloured, pink or 
purple; siem arborescent varieties ; common 
simple leaved white mulberry. 
2. “ DOPIA FOGLIA.” 
The above varieties differ in the form of the 
leaves. There appear to be others depending 
on the colour of the fruit. 
The cause of the confusion that exists in 
the nomenclature of species and varieties of 
this genus, may be traced to the circumstance 
of Botanists having taken their characters 
almost exclusively from the leaves. Now 
it happens that, in those species which have 
not been cultivated for fruit or leaves as the 
Morus Mauritiuna M. Scandens* and perhaps 
also in the M. latifolia/, the character of the 
leaf is sufficiently marked to determine the 
♦ Both those are growing in the Botanical 
Garden, Calcutta, and at Dapooree- 
