The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1907-05-14
THE MULBERRY CRAZE
How 1t Swept This Country Early
In the Last Century.
EVERYBODY WENT SILK MAD.
An Insane Passion to Raise Mulberry
Trees Seized Upon. All Glasses of
PeopIe-The Crash That Came When
the Bubble Was Pricked.

Trees seized Upon. All Glasses OF
PeopIe-The Crash That Came When
the Bubble Was Pricked.
James l.. who almost insanely hated
tobacco, was determined that silk
worms should be reared in Virginia
mainly because he thought he could
thus destroy the tobacco culture, which
he ordered to be abandoned.
For a time silk culture met with
great success in Georgia. In 1859
10000 pounds Of raw silk were thence
exported to England. Connecticut was,
however, the center of the industry.
AS late as 1925 the culture of silk was
very general there and also fiourished
in Massachusetts.
Silkworms were fed on the white
mulberry (Morus ALBA until 1880, when
there appeared the Chinese mulberry,
or Morus multicauis. 1t was predict
ed that by its culture two crops Of silk
could be raised annually. Soon all the
agricultural literature and the newspa-
pers Of the country became surfeited
with descriptions of this wonderful
tree
Many documents relating to sericul-
ture were published by congress. The
legislature of nearly every state pro-
vided for the payment of liberal boun-
ties for planting mulberry trees and
raising coeoons.
Thus it was that a speculative Juror,
veritable madness, seized upon all
classes of people and particularly upon
the shrewd, calculating Yankee. 1t
ragged like an epidemic. Not only agri-
culturists, but doctors of divinity, law
and medicine, scholars, tradesmen and
mechanics, men and women, old and
young, We're infected with an insane
passion TO raise mulberry trees
Every one thought the glorious day
was dawning when each farm would
be nursery for the young trees and
every house have its cocooneries and
its silk worms yielding two or more
crops Of cocoons yearly. The farmers
wives and daughters when not feeding
the worms were to reel the silk, which
would become as cheap as cotton, ev-
cry woman having at least a dozen silk
dresses.
The large profits anticipated in pro-
ducing silk were insignificant compar-
ed with the fortunes that all expected
to make by raising the new mulberry
tree. In 1884 trees of a seasons growth
We're sold for So to So hundred, but
they soon sold at $25, $50, 500. 5000
and $500 hundred and sometimes 81
apiece.
There is recorded an instance of two
trees of one seasons growth, raised by
one Elder Sharp in North Windham,
Conn, which were sold at auction. The
first brought $106 and the second 500.
Further sales were then withheld be-
cause the bidding was not considered
to be sufficiently spirited.
When the craze reached it's height
but little silk was produced for every
one was busy raising the new mulberry
tree. Men expected to make fortunes
in few months buying land and
planting mulberry slips, and the silk
companies almost without exception
sank their capital in this way, many
fully equipped mills being closed.
One farmer planted $1,000 worth of
trees in three-quarters of an acre and
sold them the next year for $4,000.
In 1899, just before the people came
to their senses, a nurseryman sent an
agent to France to purchase several
millions of young trees. He carried
$4,000 in cash as first payment.
When the trees arrived the inevitable
crash had come, and the nurseryman
failed for so large an amount that he
could never reckon up his Indebted
ness. His trees were offered In vain at
81 hundred for pea brush.
When the fever was over and the
people realized that their capital stock
was suddenly worthless they pulled up
all the mulberry trees in a rage and
burned them as brushwood
In 1874 a violent storm, following a
general blight destroyed most of the
remaining Morus multicaulis trees and
even the more hardy white mulberry
variety. This was the finishing blow,
and thus silk culture in America prac-
dcally ceased to exist No industry
ever In this country received such a
crushing stroke-Scientific American.