Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/117

8, 1863.] they had been accustomed to meet, crimsoning its roots with a sanguine stream, till

The berries, stained with blood, began to show

A dark complexion, and forgot their snow;

While, fattened with a flowing gore, the root

Was doomed for ever to a purple fruit.

The prayer which dying Thisbe had preferred

Both gods and parents with compassion heard,

The mulberry found its former whiteness fled,

And, ripening, saddened in a dusky red.

A native of China, of Syria—where, in very early times, we find David “smiting the Philistines under the mulberry trees”—and of Persia, this tree is supposed to have been brought from the latter country to Greece and Rome, where it was more esteemed than almost any other fruit, even in the Romans’ most luxurious times. Spreading thence to other parts of Europe, it is believed to have been brought to England by the monks, arriving in 1548, and is said to have been first planted in the gardens of Sion House (now the seat of the Duke of Northumberland), where, very recently, the original trees were still living, and no barren or unfruitful life, the branches having continued to bear luxuriant leaves and fruit long after the trunks had become so decayed as to crumble at a touch. A great impetus was given to the culture of the mulberry in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in consequence of James I. having conceived the idea that we might become a silk-growing nation, and, in consequence, doing all in his power to encourage the planting of this tree, not only expending his learned eloquence in exhorting his subjects to give their attention to it, but even offering packets of the seed to any who might choose to apply for them. This seems, however, to have been but a temporary crotchet of the royal brain, which, though exciting much enthusiasm during 1605, was, in the course of a few years, quite forgotten; but while it lasted, it had the effect of establishing mulberry trees in the gardens of most of the gentry of that period, many of which still survive, having, probably, in part owed their preservation to the fact of their regal patron not having apparently been sufficiently well versed in botanical distinctions to discriminate between the white mulberry—which is best fitted to feed silk-worms, but is good for little else—and the black mulberry, which, though less welcome to the caterpillar, yet furnishes fruit acceptable to man; whence it happened that most of the trees which he had caused to be planted with a special view to insect nurture, turned out to be of the latter species, and were, therefore, still valued, even when the practice of silk-worm rearing had ceased to be a fashionable pursuit. This mistake respecting the two species may, however, have helped to render James’s scheme abortive; but that the failure of his plan was not entirely due to it, is evident from its having been proved in later days that, however even the white mulberry may seem to thrive in this country, its leaves will not in our climate acquire that juicy tenderness which, in warmer lands, so eminently fits them for the spinners’ nutriment; for, in the language of the “Journal d’Agriculture des Pays Bas,” “the mulberry, to produce the best silk, requires the same soil and exposure as the vine does to produce the best wine.” The dreams, therefore, of minor enthusiasts, who, since King James’s period, have, from time to time, taken up his idea of introducing silk-growing as a branch of our national industry, have always resulted in equal disappointment.

Though devoured with such avidity by silk-worms, the leaves of the mulberry are eaten by no other kind of insect (although the fruit is peculiarly liable to the attacks of a very voracious worm), and its unmolested ample foliage of large, heart-shaped, serrated leaves, sometimes more or less lobed, yields, therefore, during the hot months, a very grateful shade, on which account it is commonly grown in France in the corners of courtyards, where accumulations of rubbish furnish it with a congenial soil; and as it never requires any pruning, beyond disembarrassment of the dead wood, when it becomes aged, a process which mostly quite rejuvenates the tree, it gives no trouble to its owner, and supplies during some months a continual feast to his poultry, even if he himself be quite indifferent to the charms of its fruit. Its leaves, too, are readily eaten by cattle, but the wood, which is very light in weight, is fit for little else than fuel, though the bitter root is sometimes used medicinally as a vermifuge. The blossoms, which appear in June, are not very ornamental; the male flowers, closely set together in a drooping catkin, an inch or two long, consisting only of a four-sepaled calyx surrounding four stamens; while the female ones, comprising forty or fifty tiny flowers arranged in the form of an upright spike, present also no gay corolla, but only a similar calyx encircling an ovary with two styles. It is this mass of cohering calices and ovaries which, gradually becoming fleshy and juicy, form eventually the fruit, each ovary maturing, in its two-celled interior, a single seed, and as it thus consists of “seeds embedded in pulp,” the appearance of the whole fully answers to the popular description of a “berry,” and has therefore earned for it the title of Mulberry. A modern botanist, however, would no more let this suffice to give it a place among berries, than he would consider that a butterfly must be classed among birds, because both have wings; and though, at a first casual glance, it may seem to bear a great resemblance to some of the berry fruits, especially to the similarly complexioned blackberry, a moment’s examination will show the great difference there is between them, the latter being the outgrowth of a single flower, the numerous ovaries of which form each a distinct and separable little berry, the whole number of these little berries adhering round a common receptacle, forming together a single fruit; whereas, in the mulberry, numerous flowers cohere to make one fruit; yet, instead of its divisions being more distinct, as might have been supposed, their union, on the contrary, is so complete, that though dividing markings appear upon the surface, they do not extend much deeper, and the parts,