n rooted from slips or cuttings--a
much quicker and less troublesome process. It was always necessary to
have some new trees at hand that the very young silkworms might have
tender leaves to feed upon.

How strange it was that out of the vast variety of vegetation these tiny
creatures would eat nothing but mulberry leaves! Over and over again, M.
Bretton told his children, people had experimented with the leaves of
other plants--with lettuce, spinach, and various of the greens from the
garden. But it was useless. The wee spinners scorned every such
offering. One woman, it is true, had succeeded in raising a few worms on
witch-grass; but they had not prospered, the silk from their cocoons
proving poor. Mulberry leaves they craved and mulberry leaves they must
have. In time the French peasants as well as the silk raisers of other
nations abandoned their experiments and went to learning how to grow
mulberry trees, studying with care not only which mulberry was best for
their silkworms but also which of the species flourished most
successfully in the soil of their particular country.

The more they investigated the more varieties of mulberries came to
light. There was the Tartarica, or Tartar mulberry, found on the Volga;
the Papyfera, or paper mulberry, from Japan; the Chinese mulberry; and
the more common varieties of red, black, and white mulberry. To the soil
of southern France the so-called white mulberry tree seemed best
adapted, and therefore the French peasants began cultivating it
extensively, mingling with it, however, some of the rarer Chinese
cuttings when these could be secured.

Many a lesson did the people learn about the mulberry tree while they
were perfecting its growth! They found the leaves could be reached much
more easily if the top of the tree was clipped so that it would grow low
and bushy; this enabled children to harvest the leaves, and did away
with expensive labor. But because of the luxuriant climate of France and
Italy the trees of those countries could seldom be kept low, and usually
gatherers had to use ladders to reach the leaves--a process by which
many of them were injured and rendered useless. As no silkworm would
touch a bruised leaf much of the crop was wasted. In China, where the
trees seldom grew beyond the size of shrubs, the conditions for
gathering perfect leaves were ideal; especially as the Chinese cut away
much of the under part of the trees, so that the gatherers might go in