An Arlington, Kansas, correspondent says: "Are you sufficiently acquainted with the so-called Russian mulberry which was introduced into the United States a few years ago by the German Russian Mennonites, to give me its botanical name and history? The Mennonites of this county, who came here from Russia, about sixty miles north of the Azof sea, brought seeds with them and planted them in the springs of 1876 and 1877, in this and adjoining counties. I got some of their first seedlings and some the next year, and now have many thousands of them growing. I find marked differences in the trees and leaves; also in the size and color of the fruit, some being white, some black and some a pale red or dirty pink color. I have thought that, perhaps the black fruited is of the Morus nigra or Morus tartarica species, and the white of the Morus alba. But there seems to be a great difference between these Russian kinds and the white and black kinds which we had in the United States from other sources. The Russian seems more thrifty, hardy and vigorous, and is much more productive, so far as I have observed."

[The silk worm mulberry is Morus alba. Plants from this come with leaves, fruit, and habits varying just as anything else does. We have blackberries with white, reddish and black fruit; white and yellow peaches; white, red and black grapes; just as we have black, white and rosy Morus alba. This is translated "white mulberry," and it is still white mulberry, though it has black fruit. The Morus nigra of Europe might be translated " black mulberry," but the black fruited white mulberry is another thing.

The white or silkworm mulberry has a wide range in a wild condition, extending through Asia and Northwest Europe. In different localities they vary a little, but they are all of the Morus alba or white mulberry species. There is Morus japonica, the Japan mulberry; Morus tartarica, the Russian mulberry; Morus Italica and M. mo-rettiana, Italian mulberries; Morus sinensis, the Chinese mulberry, Morus Romana, the Roman mulberry, and many others, all varying much as one grape or one apple differs from another variety of apple; but all Morus alba, and nothing more.

Just how far one of these varieties may be better than others for silk worm feeding is yet an open question. If we propagate the varieties from seed the special variety will soon be lost, for it is the tendency of all such things to vary. We may decide a Baldwin apple to be a variety just suited to our wants; but if we raise it from seeds it will soon be lost. How the mulberry variety varies from seeds our correspondent's letter shows.

The only way surely to keep these varieties is by cuttings, grafts or layers, as we have to do with varieties of fruits.

But here is the trouble. It is well known that if a large propagator gets some disease among his stock it is disseminated far and wide, till the whole race becomes contaminated. If the plant is vitiated the insects which feed on them suffer. This was the real reason for the failure of the mulberry experiment of some fifty years ago. Then the kind of Morus alba used was the Multicaulis variety. It appealed so much to the raisers of the silk worm by its enormous leaves that there seemed to be no question about its superiority. It was raised from cuttings. A weakened vital power was in this way spread. On its introduction it was pronounced as "hardy as a rock," and it was. At length it became, as we read in the reports of those times, " too tender for the vicinity of Philadelphia." But this made no difference, for the insects feeding on diseased leaves fell sick, and with this great disaster to Dr. Philip Physick's cocoonery, the "bottom fell out of the multicaulis speculation," as the old records say.

With all this experience to profit by, if we were to engage in the silk worm business we should stick to seedlings of the pure Morus alba, and worry very little about improved varieties. - Ed. G. M.]