The formation of a Silk Company
contributed by Joan Elburn Farley
There are two types of mulberry trees found along the east
coast. The red mulberry tree is native to the eastern US and can be found from
Massachusetts to the Gulf coast. The white mulberry tree is a native of Asia
and was imported by colonists eager to start a silk worm industry to compete
with the Asian silk makers.
Silkworms feed on the shiny, heart-shaped leaves of the
mulberry tree, especially those of the white mulberry. According to Alan
Whittemore, a botanist with the US National Arboretum, for many years if you
owned land in Virginia, you were required to plant a certain number of mulberry
trees on your property each year!
The colonial silkworm industry was a disaster. Silk
production required labor that was cheap but skilled. The lack of skilled labor
soon convinced the colonists that growing and exporting tobacco was exceedingly
more profitable.
With the help of birds, who eat the juicy fruit of the
mulberry, both red and white mulberry trees have proliferated and even
cross-pollinated. Most people consider the mulberry trees a nuisance, an
obnoxious weed that litters the sidewalks and driveways and splats car
windshields with the soft sticky fruit.
However, residents of the Washington, DC area with Eastern
roots – those from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia – delight in picking
the familiar fruit of their homelands. The ripened mulberries are devoured with
glee.
Joan Elburn Farley
2013
