Archive image from page 401 of Cyclopedia of hardy fruits (1922). Cyclopedia of hardy fruits cyclopediaofhar00hedr Year: 1922 352 WHITE MULBERRY BLACK MULBERRY other tree has been so much discussed in lit- erature. Cultivation for centuries in widely different soils and climates and for special characters has produced many strains of the white mulberry, some of which have been raised to the rank of species. Most important of these outlying forms of the white mulberry is M. multicauUs, Perr, from China, where it is the chief silkworm mulberry. This tree was introduced into the United States i
Archive image from page 401 of Cyclopedia of hardy fruits (1922). Cyclopedia of hardy fruits cyclopediaofhar00hedr Year: 1922 352 WHITE MULBERRY BLACK MULBERRY other tree has been so much discussed in lit- erature. Cultivation for centuries in widely different soils and climates and for special characters has produced many strains of the white mulberry, some of which have been raised to the rank of species. Most important of these outlying forms of the white mulberry is M. multicauUs, Perr, from China, where it is the chief silkworm mulberry. This tree was introduced into the United States in 1826 as food for silkworms; the silk industry was started earlier by private individuals and then fostered by state and national legislation. Its introduction brought on the 'Multicaulis Craze,' the most dramatic and the most disastrous agricultural episode North America has known. (For a full ac- count of the 'Multicaulis Craze' and of mul- berries in general, see Bailey's Evolution of our Native Fruits, Chapter II.) But of the millions of trees of the Multicaulis mulberries then planted, scarcely a plant now remains in the North, the trees having proved tender to cold, and but few are to be found in the South. According to Bailey, but one variety of the Multicaulis mulberry was introduced for its fruit,—the Downing, from seeds sown by Charles Downing, Newburgh, New York, about 1846. While popular at first, the Down- ing proved to be but half-hardy and soon disappeared in the North. It is still grown somewhat in the South for its fruits and as a stock upon which to graft other mulberries. Nurserjmien in the North offer a Downing mulberry, but this is not the original variety, Bailey tells us, but a supplanter belonging to M. alba. By whom and when the transfer was made does not appear. The variety now sold as Downing, accord- ing to Bailej\ is the New American introduced about 1854 by N. H. Lindley, Bridgeport, Connecticut, probably a seedling of one of the mulberries intr
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