There are several kinds of mulberries--the red, black, white
and paper mulberry, which are all occasionally found in this country,
and they were once quite popular here for their shade. The fruit is
unusually small for tree-fruit, and very soft when ripe, as you all
know; it is not unlike a long, narrow blackberry, and forms, like it, a
compound fruit, as though many small berries had grown together. The
tree in Mrs. Bush's garden is the black mulberry, as any one might know
by the stained lips and hands that sometimes come from there; and it has
been cultivated from ancient times for its fine appearance and shade. It
is found wild in the forests of Persia, and is thought to have been
taken from there to Europe. The tree is more beautiful than useful, for
the silkworms do not thrive well on the leaves and the wood is neither
strong nor durable."
"Why, I thought," said Clara, "that silkworms always lived on
mulberry-leaves?"
"The white mulberry is their favorite food; and another species, called
the _Morus multicaulis_--for _Morus_ is the scientific name of the
family--has more delicate leaves than any other, and produces a finer
quality of silk. These trees are natives of China, and the white
mulberry grows very rapidly to the height of thirty or forty feet. The
paper mulberry is so called because in China and Japan--of which it is a
native--its bark is manufactured into paper. In the South-Sea Islands,
where it is also found, the bark is made into the curious dresses which
we sometimes see imported thence.
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