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Show 756 COMMON MULBERRY. 757 cultivated not only for its fruit, but as yielding food forsilk. berry tree, and they multiplied and worked in the sarae manner worms, which can alone thrive on its leaves. There are two kinds, the white and black, that are cultivated for the sake of the silk-worm; but it is the white mulberry which is commonlycultivated for its leaves to feed silk-worms in France, Italy, &c. In Spain, as the Rev. Mr. Townsendin- forms us*, they prefer the white mulberry in Valencia, and the black in Granada. ‘The Persians generally make useof the lat. ter, and Mr. Miller was assured by a gentleman who had made trial of both sorts of leaves, that the worms fed withthe black mulberry produced much the best silk; but that the leaves of the black should never be given to the worms after they have eaten for sometime of the white, lest they should burst. Sir George Stauntonsays that the trees he observed in China did not appear to differ from the common mulberrytrees of Europe; that some of them were said to bear white, and some red or black fruit, but that often they bore none; and that the tender leaves growing on young shoots of the black mulberry are supposed to be the most succulent +. Mr. Evelyn remarks, that the leaves of the white mulberry are far more tender than those of the black, and sooner pro- duced byat least a fortnight. Noris this treeless beautiful to the eye than the fairest elm, and is very proper for walks and avenues. ‘Thetimberwill last in water as well as the mostsolid oak, and the bark makes good and rough bast ropes t. The white mulberry and the silk-worm were unknownto Theophrastus and Pliny. About the year of Christ 551, two Persian monks, employed as missionaries in some of the Christian churches established in India, penetrated into the country of the Seres, or China. There they observed the laboursof the silk-worm, and became acquainted with the art of working up its productions into a variety of elegant fabrics. They explained to the Greek emperorat Constantinople these mysteries, hitherto unknown, orvery imperfectly understood in Europe; and undertook to bring to the capital a sufficient numberof these wonderful insects. This they accomplished by conveying the eggs of the silk-worm in a hollow cane. They were hatched by the heat of a dunghill ; they were fed by the leaves of a wild mul- . ee * Travels, vol. iii. p. 264. + Sylvia, book ii. chap. 1. + Embassy, vol. ii. p. 420, as in those climates where they first became objects of human attention and care. Vast numbers of these insects were soon reared in different parts of Greece, particularly in the Peloponnesus. Sicily afterwards undertook to breed silk-worms with equal success, and was imitated, from time to time, inseveral towns of Italy. In all these places extensive manufactures were established, with silk of domestic production. From the reign of Justinian, it was mostly in Greece, and some of the adjacent islands, that silk-worms, whichhe first introduced into Europe, werereared. Soon after the conquest of Constantinople by the Venetians in 1204, they attempted the establishment of the silk manufacture in their dominions; and in a short time the silk fabrics of Venice vied with those of Greece andSicily. About the beginning of the fourteenth century the Florentine manufactures of silk appear to have been very considerable*. It came much later into France; the manufacture of silk, though much encouraged by Henry IV, not having been fully established there, till under Louis XIV, by Colbert +. In England, it is well known, that all the endeavours of James I.{ to * Robertson’s India, p. 89, from Procopius; also p. 110. See Gibbon’s Hist. vol. iv. p. 71, under Justinian. + Evelyn, book ii. chap. 1. t Part of king James’s letter to the lord lieutenant of each county in England. 3 “James Rex, “ We have conceived, as well by the discourse of our own reason, as by information gathered from others, that the making of silk might as well be effected here as it is in the kingdom of France, where the same has oflate years been put in practice ; for neither is the climate of this isle so i tinct or different in condition from that country, especially from the Parts thereof, but that it is to be hoped that those things prosper there, maybylike industry used here, have like st Private persons, who for their pleasure have bred of those worms, have found no experience to the contrary, but that they maybe nourished and maintained here, if provision were madefor planti tho Whose leaves are the food of the worms; and thereby we liave ; this ir herebyto let you understand, that although in suffering prc fit, which take place we do showourselves somewhat an adversary to our is the matter of our customs, for silk brought from beyond seas will receive fome diminution ; nevertheless, when there is a question of so great ¢ |