The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-09-26
A MuLTIcAuLIs MANIA.
The Mulberry Fever Which PREVAILED Fifty
4t,li Years Ago.

The Mulberry Fever Which Prevailed Fifty
atl Years Ago.
The year 1926 marked the origin of
the Mor1tS naulticauliS mania, which
ragged as fever from 1880 until it Gull
minated and collapsed in 1889. Con-
gress had referred an inquiry on silk
culture, in 1925. to the Committee on
Agriculture, which, in 1926, reported
in favor Of. its promotion. stating in the
report that the imports of silk goods in
1925 were nearly double the exports of
breadstuffs--a fact scarcely credible
now. The same year Gideon B. Smith,
of Baltimore, planted there what is
claimed to have been the first Morus
nulticauLiS tree in America. The
Secretary of the Treasury, Richard
Rush, was directed to prepare a manual
on silk-culture, and the famous crush
Letter" was accordingly issued in 1928,
together with several other treatises,
and circulated broadcast. In 1880
an article by DIR. Pascalis,
on the Morus multicaultS, in
the american Journal Of Science
directly started the mulberry
fever. The Massachusetts Legislature,
in 1881, provided for a manual of silk
culture, which was made by a manu-
facturer of Dedham, Mr.. Cobb, and
most of the States began to offer boun-
ties and premiums on trees, cocoons
and reeled silk-commonly ten cents a
pound on cocoons and fifty On silk. A
report to Congress in 1880 proposed a
grant of forty thousand dollars to
one M. D'Hormergue for the
establishment of a normal school OF
filature at Philadelphia, where sixty
young men might have gra-
tuitous instruction for two years, and
for travelling about the country to
teach silk-growing to farmers; and this
''silk BILL" though defeated in 1882,
and reported against as unconstitu-
tional in 1885, would not down till
1887 when still another committee re-
ported as a substitute scheme to lease
public lands without rent for the Guilt
walton of the mulberry tree or the
sugar beet
The whole country now went wild.
The fever seemed only to get fresh fuel
of excitement from the panic of 1887
Orchards of the multtcdatLiS were plant
ed in every State; farmers everywhere
set their wives and children to feeding
worms; multitudinous books, public
documents, periodicals on silk-culture,
constituted the bulk of the reading of
the day; stock companies for raising
and manufacturing silk sprang up like
puff-balls; silk conventions were held
and United States Silk Society was
organized.
A thrifty nurseryman on Long Island
gave help to the excitement by canny
plan. After selling a considerable
supply of the trees to New England
dealers, he started off one night by the
Providence boat, and with great pre-
tense of eagerness made the rounds of
all his customers, excitedly offering
fifty cents apiece for trees. OF course
he didn't get them, but he presently
was able to sell all he had for dollar
instead of fifty cents apiece.
In Burlington, New Jersey, over three
hundred thousand trees were raised and
sold; in December, 1888, offerings at one
dollar per tree or per twig, were re-
fused at Boston sales, and five dollars
was sometimes got for trees one season
old. 1t was satisfactorily proved
again on paper-that an acre of trees
was good for one thousand dol.
lars worth of silk, but the
price of trees had no relation to
figures, even the most rose-colored.
One farmer sold six thousand dollars
worth of trees from three-quarters of
an acre. In a single week in Pennsyl-
vania three hundred thousand dollars
worth were sold.
In 1889 the bubble burst, and the
biters were bitten. Among them was
the speculative Long-Islander. He
had caught the disease by which he had
profited, and had sent an agent to
france with eighty thousand dol
lars to buy million more
trees. When they came, they
were worth part of cent apiece for
pea-brush. Some spectators endeav-
ored to get even with fate by shipping
acargo from the East to Indiana BY
way of New Orleans in an unseaworthy
ship heavily insured, but the goods I'M
fortunately reached their destination.
Multitudes of men were ruined by the
crash. But Americans have faculty
of falling on their feet, and some OF
the unhappy mulberry-growers of the
thirties became the successful manufac-
tI1rars of latnr dave = H1rOeq,'e MOdn-