eir more convenient clipping, which they
pretend to do with scissers.

8. The mulberry is much improv'd by stirring the mould at root, and
letation.

9. We have already mentioned some of the uses of this excellent tree,
especially of the white, so called because the fruit is of a paler
colour, which is also of a more luscious taste, and lesser than the
black; the rind likewise is whiter, and the leaves of a mealy clear
green colour, and far tenderer, and sooner produc'd by at least a
fortnight, which is a marvelous advantage to the newly disclos'd
silk-worm: Also they arrive sooner to their maturity, and the food
produces a finer web. Nor is this tree less beautiful to the eye than
the fairest elm, very proper for walks and avenues: The timber (amongst
other properties) will last in the water as well as the most solid oak,
and the bark makes good and tough bast-ropes. It suffers no kind of
vermin to breed on it, whether standing or fell'd, nor dares any
caterpillar attack it, save the silk-worm only. The loppings are
excellent fuel: But that for which this tree is in greatest and most
worthy esteem, is for the leaves, which (besides the silk-worm)
nourishes cows, sheep, and other cattle; especially young porkers, being
boil'd with a little bran; and the fruit excellent to feed poultrey. In
sum, whatever eats of them, will with difficulty be reduc'd to endure
any thing else, as long as they can come by them: To say nothing of
their other soveraign qualities, as relaxing of the belly, being eaten
in the morning, and curing inflamations and ulcers of the mouth and
throat, mix'd with _Mel rosarum_, in which receipt they do best, being
taken before they are over-ripe. I have{209:1} read, that in Syria they
make bread of them; but that the eating of it makes men bald: As for
drink, the juice of the berry mixed with cider-apples, makes an
excellent liquor, both for colour and taste.

10. To proceed with the leaf (for which they are chiefly cherish'd) the
benefit of it is so great, that they are frequently let to farm for vast
sums; so as some one sole tree has yielded the proprietor a rent of
twenty shillings _per annum_, for the leaves only; and six or seven
pounds of silk, worth as many pounds sterling, in five or six weeks, to
those who keep the worms. We know that till after Italy had made silk
above a thousand years, (and where the tree it self was not a stranger,
none of the ancients writing any thing concerning it) t