The mulberry trees, as they appear before coming into leaf in the early spring, may be seen in Fig. 189.  The long limbs are the shoots of the last year’s growth, from which at least one crop of leaves had been picked, and in healthy orchards they may have a length of two to three feet.  An orchard from a portion of which the limbs had just been cut, presented the appearance seen in Fig. 190.  These trees were twelve to fifteen years old and the enlargements on the ends of the limbs resulted from the frequent pruning, year after year, at nearly the same place.  The ground under these trees was thickly covered with a growth of pink clover just coming into bloom, which would be spaded into the soil, providing nitrogen and organic matter, whose decay would liberate potash, phosphorus and other mineral plant food elements for the crop.

In Fig. 191 three rows of mulberry trees, planted four feet apart, stand on a narrow embankment raised four feet, partly through adjusting the surrounding fields for rice, and partly by additions of canal mud used as a fertilizer.  On either side of the mulberries is a crop of windsor beans, and on the left a crop of rape, both of which would be harvested in early June, the ground where they stand flooded, plowed and transplanted to rice.  This and the other mulberry views were taken in the extensively canalized portion of China represented in Fig. 52.  The farmer owning this orchard had just finished cutting two large bundles of limbs for the sale of the leaves in the village.  He stated that his first crop ordinarily yields from three to as many as twenty piculs per mow, but that the second crop seldom exceeded two to three piculs.  The first and second crop of leaves, if yielding together twenty-three piculs per mow, would amount to 9.2 tons per acre, worth, at the price named, $59.34.  Mulberry leaves must be delivered fresh as soon as gathered and must be fed the same day, the limbs, when, stripped of their leaves, at the place where these are sold, are tied into bundles and reserved for use as fuel.

In the south of China the mulberry is grown from low cuttings rooted by layering.  We have before spoken of our five hours ride in the Canton delta region, on the steamer Nanning, through extensive fields of low mulberry then in full leaf, which were first mistaken for cotton nearing the blossom stage.  This form of mulberry is seen in Fig. 43, and the same method of pruning is practiced in southern Japan.  In middle Japan high pruning, as in Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces, is followed, but in northern Japan the leaves are picked directly, as is the case with the last crop of leaves everywhere, pruning not being practiced in the more northern latitudes.

Not all silk produced in these northern countries is from the domesticated Bombyx mori, large amounts being obtained from the spinnings of wild silkworms feeding upon the leaves of species of oak growing on the mountain and hill lands in various parts of China, Korea and Japan.  In China the collections in largest amount are reeled from the cocoons of the tussur worm (Antheraea pernyi) gathered in Shantung, Honan, Kweichow and Szechwan provinces.  In the hilly parts of Manchuria also this industry is attaining large proportions, the cocoons being sent to Chefoo in the Shantung province, to be woven into pongee silk.