therefore, are not separable like the grains of a blackberry. The real class-mate of the mulberry is the pine-apple, which is formed in a similar way by numerous succulent calices cohering into a single fleshy mass; and different as are these two fruits as regards size, colour, and mode of vegetation, traces of their one great point of affinity, in being both what are called “aggregate fruits,” may soon be detected on comparing their external surfaces—marked, as each is, with such well defined, but non-separating divisions.
The mulberry when first formed is green, it then becomes red, and finally black, whence the generic name Morus[1] (from mauros, dark) is derived—a fact rather opposed to the romantic Ovidian theory, of all mulberries having been white until after the death of Pyramus and Thisbe; and involving, too, a little absurdity in the surnames by which the species are distinguished—that of nigra, affixed to the black-fruited kind, being but a pleonasm, as meaning the same thing; while alba, or white, the special title of the silk-worm-feeding sort, though justified by its snowy fruit, is as evidently a complete paradox. When fully ripe, so readily does the inky juice of the black mulberry burst through its tender skin, that it can scarcely he touched without leaving a sable stain upon the fingers, a circumstance which, it appears, is sometimes rather prejudicial to its position in society, a French writer remarking concerning the fruit, that “though many people are very fond of them, they are more often consumed in the country than at city repasts, where elegance ought to exclude them, since if not eaten with great care they stain the clothes.” When they are partaken of in France, they are served at the beginning of the meal, instead of forming part of the dessert.
Like the strawberry, the mulberry does not undergo the acetous fermentation in the stomach, and may therefore be safely eaten by the most delicate. Among the Romans it had, further, a great medicinal reputation, especially with regard to diseases of the throat and windpipe, and its syrup is still thought to be good for sore throats. It affords an excellent preserve, though not put to this use so often as it might be; is capable of being made into wine, which however is never found to keep very long; and brandy, but of a very weak sort, has also sometimes been distilled from it. As it falls from the tree (chiefly during September) as soon as it is ripe, it is usual to have a grass plat beneath, in order to furnish a carpet on which the fruit may descend without soil or injury; but as bare earth, offering a dark surface, causes a greater radiation of heat, and thus promotes the ripening process, a superior plan is, to sow cress seed thickly under the tree two or three weeks before its produce is matured, and thus provide a temporary covering for the ground just at the time when it is needed; or, better still, a net may be suspended among the branches to catch the luscious shower as it drops. With no other fruit, perhaps, except the fig, is the question of quality so dependent upon its being secured at exactly the right moment. “Every berry,” says Glennie, “has its day of perfection, before or after which it is bad. Before it is ready, it is acid and almost nauseous; and the day after, it is flat.” The harvest, however, is usually so abundant that one tree will generally suffice to supply the wants of a large family, and an instance has been known of as many as eighty quarts a week having been gathered during the season from a single tree—a very old and famous one in a garden at Greenwich, which covered a circumference of 150 feet, and, in spite of Elder plants springing up within the decayed trunk, and Ivy clinging with stifling embrace to its exterior, continued to bear large quantities of the finest fruit of the sort in England. It is indeed the ordinary characteristic of this plant to become more prolific as it increases in age, while the fruit also improves in quality, in compensation, as it would seem, for its barrenness in youth; for (unless grafted) it does not usually bear at all until it has attained a rather advanced age; since, like most plants which bring forth distinct male and female flowers, only the former are produced at first, and it is not until Nature’s “’prentice hand” has been “tried” for some years upon these, that she proceeds to fashion her vegetable Eves. Recent experiments, however, have shown that by due management it is possible to make the mulberry tree bear fruit when only three years old. Its propagation is by no means difficult, for a branch torn off and thrust at once into the ground, readily takes root, and becomes ere long a tree; while so tenacious is it of life, that roots have been known to send up shoots to the surface after having lain dormant in the earth for twenty-four years. It rarely reaches a height of thirty feet, and though of a much-branched spreading character, does not usually attain a very large size. The bark is always rough and thick, but the leaves are subject to so much diversity of size and shape as to have given rise, at one time, to the idea of there being several varieties distinct from the common sort; only one, however, being now reckoned, and that differing so little in essentials, that it need scarcely have been separated; so that the remark is still applicable which was made centuries ago by Pliny, respecting the mulberry, viz., that “It is in this tree that human ingenuity has effected the least improvement of all; there are no varieties here, no modifications effected by grafting, nor, in fact, any other improvement, except that the size of the fruit by careful management has been increased.” In America the mulberry will scarcely grow further north than New York, and it is in no part much cultivated, since even when apparently fine fruit is abundantly produced, it is not found equal in flavour to what is grown in England. A native variety, the Morus rubra, very common in both North and South America, and which has larger leaves than M. nigra, bears red fruit, tolerably palatable, but far inferior to our black.
In common with its near relative the fig, which it also resembles in the circumstance of its aggregate fruit being formed by the union of numerous flowers, the mulberry contains in every part of the tree a milky juice, which will coagulate into a- ↑ It is believed that this word has itself furnished an etymology, the peninsula of the Morea being, it is said, so called on account of its shape resembling that of a mulberry leaf.
