A Description and History of Vegetable Substances Used in the Arts, and in Domestic Economy (Volume 1 ) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1830 Excerpt: ... The mulberry tree appears to have formed an object of cultivation at a very early period in the western parts of Asia, and in Europe. The attention there bestowed upon it must have been solely on account of its fruit; for the knowledge of the mode of rearing silk-worms was confined to the people of central and southern Asia till the sixth century. We read in the Psalms that the Almighty wrath destroyed the Vol. II. 5 " mulberry-trees with frost;" ami this must have been recorded as a remarkable instance of the divine displeasure, for the mulberry is universally known not to put forth its buds and leaves till the season is so far advanced that, in the ordinary course of events, there is no inclement weather to be apprehended. It has therefore been called the wisest of trees; and in heraldry it is adopted as " an hieroglyphic of wisdom, whose property is to speak and to do all things in opportune season." In the history of the wars of David with the Philistines, the mulberrytree is mentioned as a familiar object. Pliny says of it, somewhat questionably, that " when it begins to bud, it despatches the business in one night, and that with so much force, that their breaking forth may be distinctly heard." Thunberg, an oriental traveller, tells us, which is still more extraordinary, that the sheath which encloses the flower of the talipot palm bursts with an explosion like the report of a cannon. In this country, there are many old mulberry-trees, of large dimensions, and remarkable also for the quantity of fruit they bear. It is probable that some of these old trees were planted at the latter end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries; for James I. endeavoured to render the cultivation of the tree general, in the same way that Henry IV. ...