7. Some experienc’d husbandmen advise to poll our mulberries every three or four years, as we do our willows; others not till 8 years; both erroneously. The best way is yearly to prune them of their dry and superfluous branches, and to form their heads round and natural. The first year of removal where they are to abide, cut off all the shoots, to five or six of the most promising; the next year leave not above three of these, which dispose in triangle as near as may be, and then disturb them no more, unless it be to purge them (as we taught) of dead seare-wood, and extravagant parts, which may impeach the rest; and if afterward any prun’d branch shoot above three or four cyons, reduce them to that number. One of the best ways of pruning is, what they practise in Sicily and Provence, to make the head hollow, and like a bell, by cleansing them of their inmost branches; and this may be done, either before they bud, _viz._ in the new-moon of March, or when they are full of leaves in June or July, if the season prove any thing fresh. Here I must not omit what I read of the Chinese culture, and which they now also imitate in Virginia, where they have found a way to raise these plants of the seeds, which they mow and cut like a crop of grass, which sprout, and bear leaves again in a few months: They likewise (in Virginia) have planted them in hedges, as near together as we do gooseberries and currans, for their 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.