THE MULBERRY FAMILY
“There is a fruit tree,”
said Miss Harson, “belonging to an entirely
different family, which we have not considered yet;
and, although it is not a common tree with us, one
specimen of it is to be found in Mrs. Bush’s
garden, where you have all enjoyed the fruit very much.
What is it?”
“Mulberry,” said Clara,
promptly, while Malcolm was wondering what it could
be.
“Oh yes,” said Edith,
very innocently; “I like to go and see Mrs. Bush
when there are mulberries.”
Mrs. Bush was not a cheerful person
to visit, as she was quite old and rather hard of
hearing, and she lived alone in the gloomy old house
with the Lombardy poplars in front, where everything
looked dark and shut up. A queer woman in a sunbonnet,
nearly as old as Mrs. Bush, lived close by, and “kept
an eye on her,” as she said.
Mrs. Bush’s great enjoyment
was to have visitors of all ages, to whom she talked
a great deal, and cried as she talked, about a daughter
who had died a few years ago. The little Kyles
did not care to go there except when, as Edith said,
there were ripe mulberries; but Mrs. Bush liked very
much to have them, and Miss Harson took her little
charges there occasionally, because, as she explained
to them, it gave pleasure to a lonely old woman, and
such visits were just as much charity, though of a
different kind, as giving food and clothes to those
who need them. The children delighted in the
mulberries just because they did not have them at
home, although they had fruit that was very much nicer;
but Miss Harson never wished even to taste them, although
she too had liked them when a little girl.
“The mulberry tree,” continued
their governess, “belongs to the bread-fruit
family, but the other members of this remarkable family,
except the Osage orange, are found only in foreign
countries. The bread-fruit tree itself, the fig,
the Indian fig, or banyan tree, and the deadly upas
tree, are all relations of the mulberry.”
“Well, trees are queer things,”
exclaimed Malcolm, “to belong to families that
are not a bit alike.”
“They are alike in important
points, when we examine them carefully,” was
the reply. “The bread-fruit genus consists,
with a single exception, of trees and shrubs with
alternate, toothed or lobed or entire leaves and milky
juice. This reminds me that the famous cow tree
of South America, which yields a large supply of rich
and wholesome milk, is one of the members; and you
see what a number of famous trees we have on hand
now. 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. It is
a low, thick-branched tree with large light-colored
downy leaves and dark-scarlet fruit.”
“I wonder,” said Malcolm,
“if the bark is like birch-bark?”
“It does not look like it,”
replied Miss Harson, “but it seems to be very
much of the same nature. The red mulberry and
black mulberry are the most hardy of these trees,
and the red mulberry will thrive farther north than
any of the family. The wood is valuable for many
purposes for which timber is used, and especially
in boat-building. And now, as we learned something
about silkworms and their cocoons in our talks about
insects, there is little more to be said of the
mulberry tree which any but learned people would care
to know.”
“I want to hear about the bread
tree,” said little Edith, “and how the
loaves of bread grow on it.”
“Do they, Miss Harson?”
asked Clara, not exactly seeing how this could be.
“I don’t believe they’re
very hot,” remarked Malcolm, who was puzzled
over the bread-fruit tree himself, but who laughed
at his little sister’s idea in a very knowing
way. It was not an ill-natured laugh, though,
and a glance from his governess always quieted him.
“No, dear,” replied Miss
Harson, answering Clara; “loaves of bread do
not grow on any tree. But I will tell you about
the bread-fruit presently; let us finish the Morus
family and their kindred in our own country before
we go to their foreign relations. The Osage orange
is so much used in the United States, and in this
part of it, for hedges, on account of its rapid growth
and ornamental appearance, that we really ought to
know something about it. ’It is a beautiful
low, spreading, round-headed tree with the port and
splendor of an orange tree. Its oval, entire,
polished leaves have the shining green of natives of
warmer regions, and its curiously-tesselated, succulent
compound fruit the size and golden color of an orange.
It was first found in the country of the Osage Indians,
from whom it gets its name, and it has since been
cultivated in many parts of this country and in Europe.
The Osages belonged to the Sioux, or Dacotah, tribe
of Indians, and their home was in the south-western
part of the old United States. The Osage orange a
tree from thirty to forty feet high with leaves even
more bright and glossy than those of the ordinary
orange was first found growing wild near
one of their villages.”
“But what a very high hedge it would make!”
said Malcolm.
“Yes, if left to its natural
growth, it would be a very absurd fence indeed.
But this is not the case; the branches spread out very
widely, and by cutting off the tops and trimming the
remainder twice in a season a very handsome thickset
hedge is produced, with lustrous leaves and sharp,
straight thorns. Another name for this tree is
yellow-wood, or bow-wood, because the wood is of a
bright-yellow color, and the grain is so fine and
elastic that the Southern Indians have been in the
habit of using it to make their bows. The experiment
of feeding silkworms upon the leaves has been tried,
but it was not very successful.”
“I suppose the worms didn’t
know that it belonged to the mulberry family,”
said Clara, “and I don’t see now why it
does.”
For reply, her governess read:
“’The sap of the young
wood and of the leaves is milky and contains
a large proportion of caoutchouc.’”
“Oh!” exclaimed Malcolm;
“that sounds just like sneezing. What is
it, Miss Harson?”
“Something that you wear on
your feet and over your shoulders in wet weather;
so now guess.”
“Overshoes!” replied Clara, in a great
hurry.
“How many of them do you wear
over your shoulders at once?” asked her brother.
“And it must be a queer kind of sap that has
overshoes in it. Why couldn’t you say ’India-rubber’?”
“And why couldn’t you
say it before Clara put it into your head by saying
’Overshoes?” asked Miss Harson. “Clara
has the right idea, only she did not express it in
the clearest way. The sap of the caoutchouc,
or India-rubber, tree is the most valuable yet discovered,
and, as it is of a milky nature, it can very properly
be brought into the present class of trees.”
“Is that a mulberry too?”
asked Clara, who thought that the size of the family
was getting beyond all bounds.
“It is not really set down as
belonging to the bread-fruit family,” was the
reply, “but it certainly has the peculiarity
of their milky sap. However, as I know that you
are all eager to hear about the bread-fruit tree,
we will take that next. This tree is found in
various tropical regions, but principally in the South-Sea
Islands, where it is about forty feet high. The
immense leaves are half a yard long and over a quarter
wide, and are deeply divided into sharp lobes.
The fruit looks like a very large green berry, being
about the size of a cocoanut or melon, and the proper
time for gathering it is about a week before it is
ripe. When baked, it is not very unlike bread.
It is cooked by being cut into several pieces, which
are baked in an oven in the ground. It is often
eaten with orange-juice and cocoanut-milk. Some
of the South-Sea islanders depend very much upon it
for their food. The large seeds, when roasted,
are said to taste like the best chestnuts. The
pulp, which is the bread-part, is said to resemble
a baked potato and is very white and tender, but,
unless eaten soon after the fruit is gathered, it grows
hard and choky.”
“So Edie’s ‘loaves
of bread’ are green?” said Malcolm, rather
teasingly.
“That’s because they grow
on a tree,” replied Clara. “Our loaves
of bread are raw dough before they’re baked,
and they are grains of wheat before they are dough.”
“That is quite true, dear,”
replied her governess, laughing, “and we must
teach Malcolm not to be quite so critical. The
bread-fruit is a wonderful tree, and it certainly
does bear uncooked loaves of bread, at least, for
they require no kneading to be ready for the oven.
The fruit is to be found on the tree for eight months
of the year which is very different from
any of our fruits and two or three bread-fruit
trees will supply one man with food all the year round.”
“Put what does he do when there
is no fresh fruit on them?” asked Malcolm.
“You told us that it was not good to eat unless
it was fresh.”
“We should not think it good,
but the native makes it into a sour paste called mahe,
and the people of the islands eat this during the four
months when the fresh fruit is not to be had.
The bread-fruit is said to be very nourishing, and
it can be prepared in various ways. The timber
of this tree, though soft, is found useful in building
houses and boats; the flowers, when dried, serve for
tinder; the viscid, milky juice answers for birdlime
and glue; the leaves, for towels and packing; and
the inner bark, beaten together, makes one species
of the South-Sea cloth.”
“What a very useful tree!” exclaimed Clara.
“It is indeed,” replied
Miss Harson; “and this is the case with many
of the trees found in these warm countries, where
the inhabitants know little of the arts and manufactures,
and would almost starve rather than exert themselves
very greatly. There is another species of bread-fruit,
called the jaca, or jack, tree, found on the mainland
of Asia, which produces its fruit on different parts
of the tree, according to its age. When the tree
is young, the fruit grows from the twigs; in middle
age it grows from the trunk; and when the tree gets
old, it grows from the roots.”
There was a picture of the jack tree
with fruit growing out of the trunk and great branches
like melons, and the children crowded eagerly around
to look at it. All agreed that it was the very
queerest tree they had yet heard of.
“The fruit is even larger than
that of the island bread-fruit,” continued their
governess, “but it is not so pleasant to our
taste, nor is it so nourishing. It often weighs
over thirty pounds and has two or three hundred seeds,
each of which is four times as large as an almond
and is surrounded by a pulp which is greatly relished
by the natives of India. The seeds, or nuts,
are roasted, like those of smaller fruit, and make
very good chestnuts. The fruit has a strong odor
not very agreeable to noses not educated to it.”
“Miss Harson,” said Malcolm,
“what is the upas tree like, and why is it called
deadly?”
“It is a tree eighty feet high,
with white and slightly-furrowed bark; the branches,
which are very thick, grow nearly at the top, dividing
into smaller ones, which form an irregular sort of
crown to the tall, straight trunk. There is no
reason for calling it deadly except a foolish
notion and the fact that a very strong poison is prepared
from the milky sap. The tree grows in the island
of Java, and for a long time many fabulous stories
were told of its dangerous nature. Travelers in
that region would send home the wildest and most improbable
stories of the poison tree, until the very name of
the upas was enough to make people shudder. It
is said that a Dutch surgeon stationed on the island
did much to keep up the impression. He wrote an
account of the valley in which the upas was said to
be growing alone, for no tree nor shrub was to be
found near it. And he declared that neither animal
nor bird could breathe the noxious effluvia from the
tree without instant death. In fact, he called
this fatal spot ‘The Valley of Death.’”
“And wasn’t it true, Miss Harson?”
“Not all true, Clara; some one
who had spent many years in Java proved these stories
to be entirely false. Instead of growing in a
dismal valley by itself, the graceful-looking upas
tree is found in the most fertile spots, among other
trees, and very often climbing plants are twisted
round its trunk, while birds nestle in the branches.
It can be handled, too, like any other tree; and all
this is as unlike the Dutch surgeon’s account
as possible. One of his stories was that the criminals
on the island were employed to collect the poison from
the trunk of the tree; that they were permitted to
choose whether to die by the hand of the executioner
or to go to the upas for a box of its fatal juice;
and that the ground all about the tree was strewed
with the dead bodies of those who had perished on
this errand.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Edith, “wasn’t
that dreadful?”
“The story was dreadful, dear,
but it was only a story, you know: the upas tree
did not kill people at all; and to turn the milky juice
into a dangerous poison took a great deal of time
and trouble. It was mixed with various spices
and fermented; when ready for use, it was poured into
the hollow joints of bamboo and carefully kept from
the air. Both for war and for the chase arrows
are dipped in this fatal preparation, and the effect
has been witnessed by naturalists on animals, and also
on man. The instant it touches the blood it is
carried through the whole system, so that it may be
felt in all the veins and causes a burning sensation,
especially in the head, which is followed by sickness
and death.”
“Well,” said Clara, drawing
a long breath, “I’m glad that I don’t
live in Java.”
“The poisoned arrows are not
constantly flying about in Java, dear,” replied
her governess, with a smile, “and I do not think
you would be in any danger from them; but there are
a great many other reasons why it is not pleasant,
except for natives, to live in Java. There are
a number of Dutch settlers there, because the island
was conquered by the Dutch nation, but while war with
the natives was going on they suffered terribly from
these poisoned arrows; so that the very name of upas
caused them to tremble. The word ‘upas,’
in the language of the natives, means poison, and
there is in the island a valley called the upas, or
poison, valley. It has nothing, however, to do
with the tree, which does not grow anywhere in the
neighborhood. That valley may literally be called
‘The Valley of Death.’ We are told
that it came to exist in this way: The largest
mountain in Java was once partly buried in a very
dreadful manner. In the middle of a summer night
the people in the neighborhood perceived a luminous
cloud that seemed wholly to envelop the mountain.
They were extremely alarmed and took to flight, but
ere they could escape a terrific noise was heard,
like the discharge of cannon, and part of the mountain
fell in and disappeared. At the same moment quantities
of stones and lava were thrown to the distance of
several miles. Fifteen miles of ground covered
with villages and plantations were swallowed up or
buried under the lava from the mountain; and when
all was over and people tried to visit the scene of
the disaster, they could not approach it on account
of the heat of the stones and other substances piled
upon one another. And yet as much as six weeks
had elapsed since the catastrophe. This upas valley
is about half a mile in circumference, and the vapor
that escapes through the cracks and fissures is fatal
to every living thing. Here, indeed, are to be
seen the bones of animals and birds, and even the skeletons
of human beings who were unfortunate enough to enter
and were overpowered by the deadly vapor. And
now,” added Miss Harson, “I have given
you this account to make you understand that the famous
upas valley of Java is not a valley of upas trees,
but one of poisonous vapors.”
“And the deadly upas,”
said Malcolm, “is not deadly, after all!
I think I shall remember that.”
“And I too,” said Clara
and Edith, who had listened with great interest to
the description.
“Shall we have some figs now,
by way of variety?” was a question that caused
three pairs of eyes to turn rather expectantly on the
speaker; for figs were very popular with the small
people of Elmridge.
“Not in the way of refreshments,
just at present,” continued their governess,
“but only as belonging to the mulberry family;
and we will begin with that curious tree the banyan,
or Indian fig. This stately and beautiful tree
is found on the banks of the river Ganges and in many
parts of India, and is a tree much valued and venerated
by the Hindu. He plants it near the temple of
his idol; and if the village in which he resides does
not possess any such edifice, he uses the banyan for
a temple and places the idol beneath it. Here,
every morning and evening, he performs the rites of
his heathen worship. And, more than this, he
considers the tree, with its out-stretched and far-sheltering
arms, an emblem of the creator of all things.”
“Is that only one tree?”
asked Malcolm as Miss Harson displayed a picture that
was more like a small grove. “Why, it looks
like two or three trees together.”
“Does it grow up from the ground
or down from the air?” asked Clara. “Just
look at these queer branches with one end fast to the
tree and the other end fast to the ground!”
Edith thought that the branches which
had not reached the ground looked like snakes, but,
for all that, it was certainly a grand tree.
“The peculiar growth of the
banyan,” continued Miss Harson, “renders
it an object of beauty and produces those column-like
stems that cause it to become a grove in itself.
It may be said to grow, not from the seed, but from
the branches. They spread out horizontally, and
each branch sends out a number of rootlets that at
first hang from it like slender cords and wave about
in the wind. Those are your ‘snakes,’
Edith. But by degrees they reach the ground
and root themselves into it; then the cord tightens
and thickens and becomes a stem, acting like a prop
to the widespreading branch of the parent plant.
Indeed, column on column is added in this manner,
the books tell us, so long as the mother-tree can
support its numerous progeny.”
“How very strange!” said
Clara. “The mulberry seems to have some
very funny relations.”
“Such a great tree ought to
bear very large figs,” added Malcolm.
“On the contrary,” replied
his governess, “it bears uncommonly small ones no
larger than a hazel-nut, and of a red color. They
are not considered eatable by the natives, but birds
and animals feed upon them, and in the leafy bower
of the banyan are found the peacock, the monkey and
the squirrel. Here, too, are a myriad of pigeons
as green as the leaf and with eyes and feet of a brilliant
red. They are so like the foliage in color that
they can be seen only by the practiced eye of the
hunter, and even he would fail to detect them were
it not for their restless movements. As they
flutter about from branch to branch they are apt to
fall victims to his skill in shooting his arrows.”
“If they would only keep still!”
exclaimed Edith, who felt a strong sympathy for the
green pigeons. “Poor pretty things!
Why don’t they, Miss Harson, instead of getting
killed?”
“They do not know their danger
until it is too late, and it is quite as hard for
them to keep still as it is for little girls.”
Edith wondered if that meant her;
she was a little girl, but she did not think she was
so very restless. However, Miss Harson didn’t
tell her, and she soon forgot it in listening to what
was said of the queer tree with branches like snakes.
“The leaves of the banyan tree
are large and soft and of a very bright green, and
the deep shade and pillared walks are so welcome to
the Hindu that he even tries to improve on Nature
and coax the shoots to grow just where he wishes them.
He binds wet clay and moss on the branch to make the
rootlet sprout.”
“Will it grow then?” asked Malcolm.
“Yes, just as a cutting planted
in the earth will grow, although it seems a very odd
style of gardening. The sacred fig tree of India Ficus religiosa is
a near relative of the banyan, and very much like
it in general appearance; but the leaves are on such
slender stalks that they tremble like those of the
aspen. It is known as the bo tree of Ceylon,
and is said to have been placed in charge of the priests
long before the present race of inhabitants had appeared
in the island.”
“Where do the real figs grow?” asked Clara.
“In a great many moderately
warm or sub-tropical countries,” was the reply,
“but Smyrna figs are the most celebrated.
Immense quantities of the fruit are dried and packed
in Asiatic Turkey for exportation from this city,
and it is said that in the fig season nothing else
is talked about there.”
“I didn’t know that they
were dried,” said Malcolm, in great surprise;
“I thought they were just packed tight in boxes
and then sent off.”
“‘In its native country,’”
read Miss Harson, “’and when growing on
the tree, the fig presents a different appearance
from the dried and packed specimens we see in this
country. It is a firm and fleshy fruit, and has
a delicious honey-drop hanging from the point.’
And here,” she added, “is a small branch
from the fig tree, with fruit growing on it.”
“Why, it’s shaped like a pear!”
exclaimed Malcolm.
“And what large, pretty leaves it has!”
said Clara.
“‘The fig tree is common
in Palestine and the East,’” Miss Harson
continued to read, “’and flourishes with
the greatest luxuriance in those barren and stony
situations, where little else will grow. Its
large size and its abundance of five-lobed leaves render
it a pleasant shade-tree, and its fruit furnishes
a wholesome food very much used in all the lands of
the Bible.’ Figs were among the fruits mentioned
in the ‘land that flowed with milk and honey,’
and it was a symbol of peace and plenty, as you will
find, Malcolm, by reading to us from First Kings,
fourth chapter, twenty-fifth verse.”
“’And Judah and Israel
dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his
fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days
of Solomon.’ That’s what it
means, then!” said Malcolm, when he had finished
reading the verse. “I’ve heard people
say, ’Under your own vine and fig tree,’
and I couldn’t tell what they meant.”
“Yes,” replied his governess,
“some persons make very free with the words
of Holy Scripture and twist them to suit meanings for
which they were not intended. Having a house
of one’s own is usually meant by this quotation,
and almost the same words are repeated in other parts
of the Old Testament. The fig is often mentioned
in the Bible, and two kinds are spoken of the
very early fig, and the one that ripens late in the
summer. The early fig was considered the best;
and I think that Clara will tell us what is said of
it by the prophet Jeremiah.”
Clara read slowly:
“’One basket had very
good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe;
and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could
not be eaten, they were so bad.’”
“But can figs be naughty, Miss
Harson?” asked Edith, with very wide-open eyes.
“I thought that only children were naughty,”
“There are ‘naughty’
grown people as well as naughty children,” was
the reply, “and inanimate things like figs in
old times were called naughty too, in the sense of
being bad. The fruit of the fig tree appears
not only before the leaves, but without any sign of
blossoms, the flowers being small and hidden in the
little buttons which first shoot out from the points
of the sterns, and around which the outer and firm
part of the fig grows. The leaves come out so
late in the season that our Saviour said, ’Now
learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is
yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that
summer is nigh.’ Did not our Lord say
something else about a fig tree?”
“Yes,” replied Clara;
“the one that was withered away because it had
no figs on it.”
“The barren fig tree which was
withered at our Saviour’s word, as an awful
warning to unfruitful professors of religion, seems
to have spent itself in leaves. It stood by the
wayside, free to all, and, as the time for stripping
the trees of their fruit had not come for
in Mark we are told that ’the time of figs was
not yet’ it was reasonable to
expect to find it covered with figs in various stages
of growth. Yet there was ‘nothing thereon,
but leaves only.’ Find the nineteenth verse
of the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, Malcolm, and
read what is said there.”
“’And when he saw a fig
tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing
thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no
fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And
presently the fig tree withered away.’”
“A fig tree having leaves,”
said Miss Harson, “should also have figs, for
these, as I have already told you, appear before the
leaves, and both are on the tree at the same time;
so that, although unripe figs are seen without leaves,
leaves should not be seen without figs; and if it
was not yet the season for figs, it was not the season
for leaves either. The barren fig tree has often
been compared to people who make a show of goodness
in words, but leave the doing of good works to others;
and when anything is expected of them, there is sure
to be disappointment. ‘Nothing but leaves’
has become a proverb; and when it can be used to express
the barren condition of those who profess to follow
the teachings of our Lord, it is sad indeed.”
“Do fig trees grow wild?” asked Clara,
presently.
“Yes,” was the reply,
“and very curious-looking things they are.
’Their roots twist into all kinds of whimsical
contortions, so as to look more like a mass of snakes
than the roots of a tree. They unite themselves
so closely to the substances that come in their way,
such as the face of rocks, or even the stems of other
trees, that nothing can pull them away. And in
some parts of India these strong, tough roots are made
to serve the purpose of bridges and twisted over some
stream or cataract. The wild fig is often a dangerous
parasite, and does not attain perfection without completing
some work of destruction among its neighbors in the
forest. A slender rootlet may sometimes be seen
hanging from the crown of a palm. The seed was
carried there by some bird that had fed upon the fruit
of a wild fig, and it rooted itself with surprising
facility. The rootlet, as it descends, envelops
the column-like stem of the palm with a woody network,
and at length reaches the ground. Meanwhile,
the true stem of the parasite shoots upward from the
crown of the palm. It sends out numberless rootlets,
each of which, as soon as it reaches the ground, takes
root; and between them the palm is stifled and perishes,
leaving the fig in undisturbed possession. The
parasite does not, however, long survive the decline;
for, no longer fed by the juices of the palm, it also,
in process of time, begins to languish and decline.’”
“What a mean thing it is!”
exclaimed Malcolm “as mean as the
cuckoo, that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests.
And I’m glad it dies when it has killed the
palm tree; it just serves it right. But don’t
figs ever grow in this country, Miss Harson?”
“Yes,” replied his governess;
“they are cultivated in the Southern States
and in California, like many other semi-tropical fruits,
and are principally eaten fresh, but for drying they
are not equal to the imported ones. No doubt
the cultivation of figs in California will become
a prosperous trade, for the climate and circumstances
there are much like those of Syria.”