76
MOBACE^E.
most valuable species, Morus alba , 1 a native of northern China and the island of Yezo, is cultivated inChina and Japan , northwestern India , western Asia , and the countries surrounding the Mediterranean,
1 Linnseus, Spec. 986 (1763). — Reichenbach, Icon. FI. Germ.xii. t. 1327. — Seringe, Descr. et Cult. Mur. 191, Atlas, t. 1-18. —Bureau, De Candolle Prodr. xvii. 238. — Boissier, FI. Orient, iv.1163. — Franchet, Nouv. Arch. Mus. sdr. 2, v. 270 (PI. David, i.). —Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxvi. 466.
Morus Tatarica, Linn®us, l. c. (1763). — Pallas, FI. Ross. i.pt. ii. 9, t. 62.
Morus Constantinopolitana, Poiret, Lam. Diet. iv. 381 (1797). —Nouveau Duhamel, iv. 92, t. 24. —Maximowiez, Prim. FI. Amur.477.
Tbe wild Mulberry-tree with deeply lobed, irregularly shapedleaves and dark red or nearly black fruit, discovered by tbe French missionary David on the mountains of southern Mongolia , andcommon in the mountainous regions of northern China , is believedto be the original type from which have sprung the numerous vari-eties of this tree which are now cultivated where sericulture ispracticed (Julien, Resume des Principaux Traites Chinois sur laCulture des Muriers. — Bretschneider, Jour. North-China BranchRoyal Asiatic Soc. n. ser. xxv. 329 [ Botanieon Sinicum, ii.]) ; andthe White Mulberry in a form with less uniformly divided leavesthan those of the north China tree is certainly wild in the primevalforests which cover the hills of central Yezo.
No other tree furnishes employment, directly and indirectly, toso large a number of the human race, or has been so carefullystudied from the cultural point of view ; and no other tree hasgiven rise to such a voluminous literature. The cultivation of theWhite Mulberry-tree in China to furnish food for the silk-worm( Bombyx Mori , Linnseus) is as old as the civilization of the Chinese race ; and there is a tradition printed in the first century beforethe Christian era that Siling, wife of the Emperor Huang Ti (b. C.2697), first instructed the people in the art of rearing silk-worms.Long and jealously guarded by the Chinese , the secret of the artof silk-making first reached Japan through Corea in the third cen-tury of our era ; during the reign of the twenty-first Mikado (457-479 a. d.) the planting of Mulberry-trees was encouraged, althoughit was not until the second half of the sixth century that silk-cul-ture became a great national industry in Japan (Rein, Industries ofJapan , 188). The art of sericulture carried from China to India was first established there in the valley of the Brahmaputra , andthe earliest account of the silk-worm in European literature appearsin Aristotle (Hist. Anim. v. 19 [17] ; 11 [6]), who may have derivedhis scanty knowledge of it from the Greek soldiers who accompa-nied Alexander to India . In the year 560 two Nestorian monkscarried eggs of the silk-worm from Khotan to the Court of Justin-ian in Constantinople , and silk-culture, gradually established in theByzantine Empire , spread through southern Europe , although untilthe fourteenth century the Black and not the White Mulberry-treewas planted in fhe countries bordering the Mediterranean to sup-ply the silk-worm with food. (See Loudon, Arh. Brit. iii. 1348. —Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti , Cenni Storici sulla Introduzione di variePiante nelV Agricoltura ed Orticoltura Toscana, 188. — A. De Can dolle , Origine des Plantes Cultivees, 119.)
Early in the sixteenth century the Spaniards made an unsuccessfulattempt to establish sericulture in Mexico , and Mulberry-trees andthe eggs of the silk-worm were sent from Spain for the purpose ;a century later James I. endeavored to introduce it into the Eng-lish colonies in North America , and, until the breaking out of theWar of the Revolution, persistent efforts were made by the British government to encourage the rearing of silk-worms, especially in
Virginia, which seemed to offer particular advantages for thisindustry (see a pamphlet published in London in 1655, entitledThe Reformed Virginian Silk-Worm, or a rare and new Discovery ofa speedy way, and easie means, found out by a young Lady in Eng-land, she having made full proof thereof in May anno 1652. Forfeeding of Silk-worms in the Woods, on the Mulberry-tree leaves inVirginia [Force, Coll. Hist. Tracts, iii. No. 13]) ; and in Georgia,where every grant of Crown land was coupled with the conditionthat one hundred White Mulberry-trees should be planted on eachten acres of ground. (See an Account, shewing the Progress of theColony of Georgia, in America , from its first establishment, 7, London ,1741 [Force, l. c. i. No. 5].)
The White Mulberry-tree flourishes in all the eastern United States , and by its hardiness in the severe climate of New England shows its northern origin. In a description of the province of South Carolina in 1731, a White Mulberry-tree seven or eight years old,growing at Port Royal, is said to have had a trunk five feet in cir-cumference, and several other trees only five years old with trunksa foot in diameter are described. (See Force, l. c. ii. No. 10.) Seri-culture, however, has never become an American industry, althoughvarious attempts to make it so have been tried in the United States by individuals or through bounties offered by the state govern-ments. Climatic conditions favor the industry, but the high priceof labor has made it unprofitable. Sixty years ago the hope ofestablishing it in the United States caused the greatest horticultu-ral speculation the country has known, and ruined thousands ofpeople. In 1824 a French traveler brought to France under thename of Morus multicaulis (Perrottet, Ann. Soc. Linn. Paris , 1829,129. — Seringe, l. c. 213, t. 18) a variety of the White Mulberry-tree which he had found in the Philippine Islands , where it hadbeen carried by a Portuguese priest toward the end of the sixteenthcentury. The rapid growth of this tree, its large and succulentleaves, and the ease with which it could be multiplied, soon at-tracted the attention of European sericulturists ; and in 1827 itwas introduced into the United States through the Prince Nur-sery on Long Island . A year later it was carried to Massachusetts by William Kendrick, a nurseryman of Newton , and graduallymarvelous stories of its value spread from town to town and fromstate to state. Nurserymen gave up all other business to propagatethe South Sea novelty ; farmers covered their land with the trees,and all eastern America , converted into one great Mulberry plan-tation, was to become the rival of the Orient and of Europe in theproduction of silk. Plants brought fabulous prices, and the north,the south, and the west struggled with each other to secure them inthe auction rooms of eastern cities. But the reaction soon came ;the climate of the northern states was found to be too severe forthis variety, and trees were killed by cold or by the diseases whichappeared among them ; and nurserymen and farmers were ruined.In 1839 the bubble burst; and of the millions that were plantedhardly one tree now remains in any of the northern states. (SeeKendrick, American Silk Growers' Guide, 26. — L. H. Bailey , Bull.Hort. Div. Cornell Agric. Exper. Stat. No. 46 ; also numerous arti-cles in the New England Farmer, ix.-xviii.)
The so-called Russian Mulberry (Morus alba Tatarica, Loudon)was introduced by Russian Mennonites into the western states in1875; although of comparatively little value as a fruit-tree, it isvery hardy, and useful in forming wind-breaks on the prairies oras an ornamental hedge-plant, and several varieties, valued fortheir large fruit or pendulous branches, have been raised in this