Page:Tree Crops; A Permanent Agriculture (1929).pdf/130

 cause the humid summer of our Corn and Cotton Belts keeps the trees growing and producing leaves.

The mulberry has another great use among the Asiatics. It is a food of value for a dense population pressing upon resources more heavily than we do. This fruit has long been an important food in many parts of Western Asia.

"Dried white mulberries, practically, but not quite, seedless and extremely palatable, form almost the exclusive food of hundreds of thousands of Afghans for many months of the year. This use of dried mulberries suggests a new tree food crop. Analysis of these dried mulberries (page 93) shows them to have about the food value of dried figs, and the fig is one of the great nutritive fruits. (See table, page 303.)

Ellsworth Huntington of Yale, geographer and explorer, says that in Syria the troubles of the beggar and the dog are over for a time when mulberries are ripe, for both of these mendicants move under the mulberry tree and pick up their living. "Not only do the people eat large quantities of the fruit, but they also dry it and make a flour out of which a sort of sweetmeat is made."

But I am not urging diet reform for people—only for pigs. They are much more amenable to reason, much more easily pressed by necessity. But, nevertheless, this Afghan dried mulberry seems to be a remarkable food according to the ex-