THE mulberry is a genus comprising many species. Its origin has been assigned to China; but several species are found growing in a wild state in America. The fruit is a berry of a roundish or oblong form; of a color varying from white to red or black; its pulp envelopes numerous small seeds.

USES. Most of the varieties of the mulberry are esteemed dessert fruits. When perfectly mature they are grateful to the taste and very wholesome. The syrup is useful in mitigating inflammations of the throat. The juice when properly fermented, affords a pleasant vinous wine; mixed with apples they afford a delicious beverage called mulberry cider, of a deep red color like port wine. Lastly the leaves of the various species of the mulberry, constitute the principal food of the silk-worm. Not every kind however is equally suitable. Those most esteemed are the Morus alba-M. lucida-M. tartarica-M. Dandolo and M. multicaulis.

VARIETIES.

BLACK MULBERRY.

MORUS NIGRA.

This tree is a native of Asia Minor. It rises from twentyfive to thirty feet. The leaves are large and rugged. Its fruit is large, black, aromatic, juicy, subacid and good. An agreeable wine is made from its juice. The juice is used for imparting a dark color to liquors; the bark of the root is a powerful cathartic; and from the bark of the tree, strong cordage and brown paper is made. RED MULBERRY.

MORUS RUBRA.

A native of America. The tree rises to the height of from thirty to forty feet; the leaves are large, cordate, often palmed, and more often three lobed, dark green above, downy beneath, rugged. The fruit is of a very deep red color and excellent. This variety is esteemed superior to the Black Mulberry as a fruit, and the tree is more hardy.

JAPAN PAPER MULBERRY.

BROUSSONETIA PAPYRIFERA.

The tree rises to a large size, with a round head; the leaves are rough, either cordate, entire or lobed. It is a native of China and Japan, and the liber or inner bark, by being beaten to render it pliable, serves for paper and as an article of clothing in those countries. The fruit is round and curious, but not edible.

CULTIVATION, &c.

These varieties of mulberry will flourish in almost any soil, but grow most luxuriantly in a deep sandy loam, rather in a humid than dry soil. They are propagated by seeds or by layers, and sometimes by cuttings. The seeds are obtained by washing the bruised pulp of thoroughly ripe fruit; they are carefully dried, and sown early in April in a rich soil, and covered to the depth of half an inch with loam, and pressed down compactly. The second year they are transplanted to nursery rows.

MULBERRY AND SILK.

PART 1.-ON THE MULBERRY.

WHITE ITALIAN MULBERRY.

MORUS ALBA.

A native of China. It is a tree of rapid growth, and extensively known for the uses of its leaf for the food of silk-worms. The leaves are pointed cordate, serrate, entire or lobed. The fruit is white, roundish oblong, of an insipid taste. The bark according to Rosier, may be converted into linen of the fineness of silk. For this purpose, the young wood and berk are gathered in autumn, during the ascent of the second sap, and immersed for three or four days in still water. It is then taken out at sunset, spread on grass, and returned to the water at sunrise, and this daily repeated, and finally it is prepared and spun like flax.

MORUS LUCIDA OR SHINING LEAVED.

The leaves are very large, pointed, cordate and shining. This variety is said to be highly deserving of cultivation for the nourishment of silk-worms.

MORUS TARTARICA OR

BERRY.

TARTAREAN MUL

This mulberry is from the environs of Asoph. The leaves are large, oval, oblong, serrated, shining. The fruit resembles the Morus nigra. The leaves afford silk of the finest quality.

DANDOLO OR

Fontaneilles.

MORETTIANA MULBERRY. Dr

A new and most valuable species of mulberry for the nourishment of the silk worm. It was first discovered about 1815, by M. Moretti, Professor in the University of Pavia, and from a single young tree, he had in 1826, multiplied them to 120,000. The tree is presumed to be hardy; the fruit, which is at first violet, becomes at maturity perfectly black. The leaf is ovate, sharp pointed, entire, cordate at the base. It is thin, smooth on the under and especially on the upper surface, which is of a beautiful and rather deep shining green; it is not near_so thick as that of the large white mulberry, called in France, the Admirable, and is thinner than those of the Spanish mulberry, (Mor us nigra). It is neither wrinkled nor plaited. It is in general nearly eight inches wide, and ten inches long. This mulberry will be most profitably cultivated in the form of a hedge, and from the superior size of the leaf they are gathered with the greatest facility. Its superior quality has been proved by the experiments of M. Gera and Count Dandolo, who assert that they produce silk of a more beautiful gloss and of finer quality than common silk. (See the whole article inserted by the Hon. H.A. S. Dearborn, in the New England Farmer, vol. 8, No. 29. It is from the Annales d'Horticulture, and is extracted from the Report of Dr Fontaneilles, on a letter published by M. Gera, in 1826, in the Journal of Physics and of Chemistry of Pavia.)

CHINESE MULBERRY. (Morus sinensis.)

MORUS MULTICAULIS. (Many Stalked Mulberry.) PERROTTET MULBERRY.

For no inconsiderable portion of the materials of the following interesting account of this new mulberry, I am indebted to the researches of the Hon. H. A. S. Dearborn. They were collected by him and inserted in the New England Farmer, at different times during 1830 and 1831, and were chiefly the translations from the "Annales d'Horticulture," and the "Annales L'Institut Royal Horticole de Fromont."

Of all the varieties of Mulberries for silk, the Chinese Mulberry or Morus multicaulis, appears that which is most eminently entitled to preference. It originated in the elevated regions of China, a country famous from antiquity for its silk, and renowned for its industry; a parallel to our own in its climates and divers latitudes. It is to this tree, that the disciples of Confucius, acknowledge their indebtedness for the prosperity and solidity of their empire.

The Morus multicaulis, or Chinese Mulberry, since its introduction to France, seems destined to replace, everywhere, the common white mulberry, for the nourishment of silk worms, such is its decided superiority over all others. The tree is beautiful, and of a rapid growth. The leaves in a dry and arid soil are of less size, and elliptical, their breadth being six inches and their length eight; but in a light, friable, rich, and humid soil, they are large and cordate; extraordinary specimens having sometimes measured more than a foot in breadth, and fifteen inches in length; their upper surfaces are convex or curled, and of a deep and beautiful shining green. The fruit which was unknown even in France till 1830, is long, black, and of appearance sufficiently beautiful, its flavor good, being intermediate between that of the red, and that of the black mulberry; its produce is abundant.

This mulberry differs from all others in the property which the roots possess of throwing up numerous flexible stalks; the great length which these stalks acquire in a short space of time; and the facility with which it is propagated from layers, or even from cuttings; also from the remarkable size which the thin, soft, and tender leaves,

speedily acquire, and the promptitude with which they are renewed.

The silk which the worms form, from the food afforded by this plant, is not only of superior quality, as has been abundantly proved in France, but the cocoons are of unusual size. The leaves from their extraordinary dimensions, being gathered with important economy of labor, and of time; and from their superior nutritious qualities, they are preferred by the insects to all others.

This mulberry should be cultivated in hedge rows, and never suffered to rise higher than seven or eight feet. But a few years are sufficient to raise considerable fields of them in full vigor, sufficient to support an immense number of silk worms; and regular plantations can be speedily formed, by planting the shrubs at the distance of from six to eight feet asunder; a space sufficient for the extension of the branches-sufficient also for cultivation, and for the greater convenience of gathering the leaves. So greatly is this last operation facilitated, by the flexibility of the stalks, and the very superior size of the leaf, that as we are assured by M. Perrottet, a child is sufficient for gathering the food for a large establishment of silk worms.

The introduction of this plant from Asia is due to M. Perrottet, Agricultural Botanist, and traveller of the Marine and Colonies of France. It was brought by him to France in 1821, in that vast collection, and variety of productions, which he had, during thirty four months, procured in the seas of Asia, or gathered on the coast, or in the lands of Guiana.

From Manilla, the capital of the Phillippine Islands, whither it had been brought by the Chinese as a tree of ornament, as well as of eminent usefulness, it was introduced by M. Perrottet into the Isle Bourbon, and from thence into Cayenne and France. At a later period it was sent from Cayenne to Martinique, and from France to Gaudaloupe; also to Senegal; the numerous plants which are already disseminated in the divers climates of Africa, of America and Europe, have all been produced by the two individual plants which were brought by M. Perrottet from Manilla. At first, its cultivation in France was confined almost exclusively to the royal gardens, that its trial and dissemination might be thus rendered the more effectual throughout every department of the country. The Morus