Mr. J. C. Calhoun, farmer of Ruston, Louisiana, says, "The variety is the 'Hicks.' I set them out 30x30 feet apart. I have 50 trees. They were mere switches when I set them out about three feet high. They began bearing the second year and made rapid growth. The fourth year after putting them out the trees would nearly touch, and they are abundant bearers—ripening from the last of April to the last of July. There is nothing that a hog seems to enjoy better than mulberries. I always feed my hogs at least once a day, but I find that it takes considerable less feed for them to thrive and do well during mulberry season," (Letter. March 7, 1913.)
In the course of much correspondence and a long journey through the Cotton Belt in 1913 I met many such enthusiastic statements.[1]
In that east-central part of North Carolina where the mulberry orchard is a very common part of farm equipment, a veteran of the Civil War (a captain) declared, "When I lived
- ↑ "We have talked this matter over thoroughly here in the office and believe that one mulberry tree 10 years old ought to support a pig 4 to 6 months old during the tree's fruit season. As the tree gets older, 15 to 20 years old, if it has had good attention and has grown well, then it ought to support two or three pigs at the same age as mentioned above." (O. J. Howard, J. Van Lindley Nursery Company, Pomona, North Carolina, August 11, 1912.)
"The large mulberry tree of which I spoke is in the south part of Wake County, North Carolina. I stopped at the place to get some water and spoke of the large mulberry trees and made the remark that it was wisely said that one tree fed one pig during fruiting season. The owner said it certainly would, for this tree was feeding fifteen hogs at that time and was probably one hundred years old. The place is near Fuquay Spring, North Carolina." (J. W. Green, Green Nursery Company, Garner, North Carolina.)
It may properly be objected that these men are partisans, being nurserymen with trees to sell, but many farmers without any axes to grind are of the same opinion.
Mr. R. H. Ricks, a farmer specializing in cottonseed at Rocky Mount, North Carolina, gives the following testimony: "I planted two hundred mulberry trees of the everbearing variety thirty-three years ago on what I regarded as waste land. They commenced having some fruit at once, but they did not have profitable crops until the fifth year. I have since planted another orchard of fifty trees. I carry fifty to sixty hogs on the fruit ten to thirteen weeks every year for the last twenty-seven years without other
