ISSUE 32, NATIVE FRUITS, Part 3: Mulberry

The Fruit of Disappointment

Travis Mulberry, Deborah Passmore, 1908 USDA Pomological Watercolor Col.

The Fruit of Disappointment

Has any fruit fallen farther in esteem than the Mulberry?  From 1829 to 1839 it was the tree of dreams. 

Fruit broker William Prince of Flushing New York got his hands on a Multicaulis Chinese White Mulberry (Morus alba), the favorite food of the silk worm, and ignited a fury of fruit speculation.  Prince had tapped into an old old dream—using the idle hours on a farmstead growing silkworms and creating in America brocades and undergarments as refined as those crafted in China or Italy.  (And commanding the exalted prices that the precious fabric brought.) 

In the very first colonial prospectus written in English—in Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1585) we find the wish for silk transforming tent caterpillars of the outer banks of NC into silk worms and the cellulite wrapper on marsh grass into grass silk. 

When the Georgia colonists laid out Savannah in 1732, they dispersed squares along the urban grid to accommodate mulberry trees to feed silk worms, for silk was to be Georgia’s staple commodity.  Alas, they chose the English (Persian) Black Mulberry (Morus nigra) to plant—not the variety that silk worms craved.  The mulberries survive in the old city; the dreams of silk died long ago. 

But in 1829 William Prince secured the right tree—the one that fueled silk worm gluttony and transformed into cocoons of silken thread.  In 1893 L. W. Bailey recalled the Mulberry Madness that seized the United States:

“Many nurserymen gave up all other business that they might grow the mulberry, and they realized several hundred per cent. profit. The secret of the Chinese silk had been discovered, and every available acre from New England to the Gulf must be covered with the marvelous herbage of this mulberry, and men must train their hands to the breeding of the worms and spinning the silken threads! One nurseryman, who is still living, went to the West Indies that he might grow hundreds of thousands of trees during the Winter season, so great was the haste for plants. From the thinly settled portions of the West the planters came eager for trees at almost any price, and even in Maine the demand was great. Then came the reaction. The market was supplied and soon overstocked.  A disease appeared. The Winters of New England were too severe.  One man near Hartford lost nearly 10,000 trees from cold.  Men lost their fortunes; and in 1839 the bubble burst.” 

When an American silk industry failed to materialize, acres were occupied with the Chinese White Mulberry, beloved of insects and birds, but decidedly a third choice in terms of taste to the English Black and the native American Red Mulberry (Morus rubra).  In the mid 1800s the groves were cut down, but birds who devoured the fruit spread the seeds, so now the small White trees became an invasive species, spreading throughout the continent, except for Nevada. 

In the South farmers, heeding the hard lessons of the Georgia settlers, were less entranced with Mulberry as worm food than with the possibility that it could provide sustenance for chickens and hogs.  Having witnessed the native birds and wild life feasting on the Red Mulberries in the southeastern forest, American breeders began seeking a remedy for the one liability of the native fruit—the brevity of the fruiting season. 

Nicholas Herbemont in Columbia SC crossed the Morus rubra with a Morus alba creating an everbearing variety that supplied fruit for four months.  Ironically it would eventually be sold throughout the country as Hick’s Everbearing, honoring a later promoter of the fruit.  Charles Downing in New York bred the Chinese White with a native Red to create the Downing’s Everbearing, noteworthy for its long drupes.  P. J. Berkmann’s found another cross between the Red and the White that was very prolific, and better-tasting, he claimed, than any other variety.  The market did not bear this out, for both the Downing and the Hick’s would be cultivated into the 21st century, the former in the United States, the latter in Australia and New Zealand.

The ever-bearing mulberries did their job well—feeding multitudes of chickens and pigs for decades.  And having mulberries in the orchard deflected birds from eating one’s cherries.  But as a market fruit mulberries never took off.  They were too soft to transport, so could not become a regular produce stand commodity.  They were too prolific and too messy, dropping fruit over yards and lawns in promiscuous profusion. Stepping on them and bringing juice on one’s shoes into the house was a constant problem.  Another liability was the enormous yields of the everbearing trees.  There was too much fruit—and one could stand only so many pies, jars of jam, and sugar stewed berries a season.  Glut bred distaste.  It became too familiar, too demanding. 

In the 20th century the contempt arising from familiarity caused even chicken farmers and livestock people to clear the trees from yard, feed the animals pellet feed . . . and resort in time to industrial animal management in chicken and hog factories.  Eating the sweet, and sometimes tart (Hick’s and Red Mulberry), fruit has become the amusement of a small band of devotees, who float on the internet new tweaks to old pie recipes, jams that use a century old formula, but may add ginger or subtract pectin.  The foodways of the Mulberry have gotten caught in a loop.  Recent attempts to commodify the fruit—for instance drying the mulberries and claiming extraordinary health benefits (controlling diabetes for instance) from consuming it—have not made the mulberry the next health food sensation. 

Wild birds have seen to it that the trees have not disappeared from the landscape.  It is simply that we no longer see them as gifts of nature that afford pleasure and profit.  A shame.  They taste good, fresh, cooked, or dried.  If you care to nourish the wildlife population, mulberry trees are a rich addition to the edible landscape. 

THE OLD VARIETIES

AMERICAN

Bred from the Chinese White Mulberry (itself a development of the Multicaulis Mulberry), the ‘New American’ Mulberry premiered in 1854 and won steady support, particularly in the northern United States.  Bearing from late June into September, it was regarded an Everbearing variety.  When fully ripe, the glossy black fruit varied in length from one to two inches—this variability was regarded by some as a fault.  A countervailing virtue was its value as an ornamental tree.  Forked Deer Nurseries in Curve, Tennessee, wrote an appreciation in 1890: “Fruit of the largest size, black, delicious in flavor. An attractive lawn tree, with very large leaves; of rapid growth and hardy.” 

BLACK ENGLISH [BLACK PERSIAN]

An tree native to Persia and mentioned in ancient records, the Black Mulberry was known as the Black English in the United States because of its universal popularity in the 18th century pleasure gardens of England.  It was introduced into England, probably from Italy, in the middle 16th century and appear in Gerarde’s 1595 herbal. “It is a moderately sized, round-headed tree, of slow growth, late in putting out its leaves, but one of the first to ripen its fruit.  The foliage is of a bright green, and, unlike almost every other tree, is never injured by insects” [J. W. Russell, “On the Cultivation of the Black Mulberry,” The American Farmer (October 21, 1840), 171.] Though the leaves of the Black Mulberry were used to feed silk worms in Turkey and Italy, the worms themselves preferred those of the Multicaulis.  The leaves of the Black English are “subquinquelobate, bluntish and rugged” while the Multicaulis are shining and undivided.  These are the sweetest tasting of the mulberry varieties to humans, and have long been a staple in culinary orchards.  They are now sold under the name Persian Mulberry and are widely available in the United States: https://www.willisorchards.com/product/persian-mulberry-tree#.VaWbHktAspE

DOWNING’S EVERBEARING

A tart Mulberry developed from a seedling of the Multicaulis Mulberry (the preferred variety of the silk worm) in Newburg, New York, by Charles Downing in 1846, Downing’s Everbearing was both an ornamental yard tree, with large attractive foliage, and a generous producer of fruit.  Usually it began bearing during the fourth year after planting, producing berries an inch and a half in length from July 1 (or earlier in more southern regions) until the second week in September.  The fruit was “purplish-black, with small fine grains of a rich, subacid taste” [L. B., “Downing’s Ever-bearing Mulberry,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Taste (February 1858), 58.] In the long term, the Downing’s Everbearing proved to have two liabilities:  it was a relatively short-lived tree; it proved vulnerable to cold and suffered die off in sections where temperatures dipped into the single digits for more than three days.  In the latter part of the 19th century nurseryman quietly substituted the New American Mulberry for Downing in orders and ceased propagating the variety.  USDA: http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/acc/display.pl?1552673

HICK’S EVERBEARING   [HERBEMONT]

First bred by horticulturist Nicholas Herbemont in South Carolina in the 1820s  from the native American Red Mulberry this tree, intended as a feed tree for pigs proved to be much hardier than Downing’s Ever-bearing and superior to it “in size and quality of its fruit, which is produced during a considerably larger period of time.  It is a prodigious bearer; the berries are usually nearly two inches in length, sweet and delicious” [William R. Prince, “Ever-bearing Mulberries,” Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste (April 1860), 157.  It was called ever-bearing because trees began producing fruit at the end of April and continued until mid-July.  The tree had distinctive dark red wood, the foliage was indented.  The tree was extraordinarily prolific, but the flavor of the fruit, while sweet, was more “insipid” than that of Black English [Glen St. Mary Nursery 1894, Glen St. Mary FL, p. 26.].  Not in USDA pomological collection. Available from commercial nurseries in New Zealand and elsewhere:  http://www.edible.co.nz/varieties.php?fruitid=70_Mulberry_Mulberry%20Hicks%20Early and Australia  http://www.yalcafruittrees.com.au/shop/mulberry-trees/hicks-fancy-mulberry/

MULTICAULIS  [CHINESE WHITE]

The Chinese White Mulberry used to feed silk worms, the Multicaulis came to the United States in 1829, imported by pomologist William Prince of Flushing, New York.  It sparked America’s first fruit bubble. By 1883 the last orchard grown Maulticaulis tree was cut down in the North, outside of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Birds, however, had spread the small white tree across the American countryside where it naturalized.  In the South, the Chinese White remained a regular stock item into the twentieth century, being sold by Florida nurseries particularly.  Though the Multicaulis grew rapidly, it bore fruit “sparingly.” It ripened quickly, and through the nineteenth century was the first variety to be edible. In the 21st century it has become the focus of many alternative medicine claims. 

RED [VIRGINIA]

The Morus rubra Mulberry native to the United States and the largest growing of all the genus, sometimes attaining 70 feet in height in parts of the South.  The wood became one of the favorite kinds for use in fence posts and the creation of live hedges and windbreaks. 

RUSSIAN CUT LEAVED

Introduced by Russian Mennonites into Canada and the United States (who also brought with them the giant Sunflower), this tree proved a quick growing and robust tree suited for western lands.  It sometimes produced fruit within two years of planting.  The wood was used for fencing and the trees for windbreaks.  The fruit was vari-colored, white, red, and black, with black predominating.  The human palatability was deemed a shade inferior to Hick’s and Downing’s, and only superior to the Chinese White.  Yet the Russian bore these fruit so densely that on mature leaves the massed fruit vied with foliage on the branches. 

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/acc/display.pl?1910682

STUBBS

A mutation of the native Red Mulberry (Morus rubra), popularized by pomologist P. J. Berckmans of Fruitland Nursery in Augusta Georgia as a rival to the Hicks (Herbemont) Everbearing Mulberry.  Berkmanns indicated that it “was discovered in Laurens County, Georgia, some twenty years ago.  Tree very vigorous and with broad foliage.  Fruit very large—from 1 ½ to 2 inches long; black, vinous and of excellent quality; greatly superior to any of the cultivated varieties. It is a wonderfully prolific bearer; fruit lasts nearly two months.”  Like all mulberries derived from the American native Red, its acidity beneath the forward sweetness made it less attractive to human consumers than the English Black.   But its Morus rubra ancestry gave it extraordinary vitality in the southern countryside. 

TEA’S WEAPING

An ornamental lawn tree configured as an umbrella with slender branches and leaves cascading from its crown.  A very hardy tree, it was consider one of the most beautiful of weeping trees.