This article is part of an ongoing series of contemplations about God’s creation and man’s role in it by Rev. Lou Veiga, Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Houston, TX.
I purchased my first home when I was thirty years old, in the town of Wilmore, Kentucky. The Sears & Roebuck Stick House was constructed of stucco and cedar planks, and it was then over 60 years old. Its foundation landscape planting was already well established. I bought this lovely house from a chemistry professor at Asbury University (then Asbury College), who was moving to teach at Seattle Pacific University. The professor must have had a side-line job as a botanist, as there were many interesting and valuable trees and shrubs on the property.
One tree I had overlooked at the house closing was a large mulberry tree (Morus sp., Carl Linnaeus, 1753). This tree was certainly not planted by anyone with a science background. It was over thirty feet tall and had found a choice spot precisely on the property line between me and my neighbor to the south; responsibility for its maintenance was thereby conveniently denied. The tree prospered, however, because it was on the rain drip line from my neighbor’s garage roof, and there it received plenty of moisture. But the tree was a nuisance to me for various reasons: the large tree needlessly shaded my backyard lawn and perennial flower bed, it was growing up in the midst of an otherwise beautiful tall hedge of flowering Mock Orange shrubs (Murraya paniculate), and its purplish-red berries would drop on the ground, to be trampled and tracked indoors, their juices permanently staining my kitchen linoleum floor. Birds would devour the berries, and their droppings would further stain anything and everything lower than their tail feathers. This tree was a mistake and a nuisance anywhere near any house. The tree was the first thing that had to go.
Having been introduced to this botanical bombshell, I noticed that there was another large, old mulberry tree growing on the slope of the lawn of Asbury College, at the head of our street. During the summer it would shower abundant fruit onto the school’s lawn and sidewalk. Seeing as this was a type of berry, I picked about a quart off the grass, rinsed the berries well, and tasted a few; they were not as interesting as red raspberries but were almost as tasty as blackberries. Nevertheless, the heavily stained purple sidewalk near the tree was a reminder of the steep price to be paid for befriending this tree.
One warm summer morning I was quietly heading up the nearby Kentucky River in my canoe when I heard a plop … plop … plop about thirty yards ahead of me. As I paddled closer, I could see concentric rings on the surface of the river formed by ripe mulberries dropping from an overhanging tree on the river bank. The large, old tree was leaning hard, heavy with fruit. As I glided past the center of one newly formed ring, I saw something that surprised me: an eight-inch wide, mustached mouth opened and inhaled a plopped, plump berry. A channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus), and a big one! But wait … not just one large channel cat, but perhaps a dozen, all lazily hanging just below the water’s surface in a haphazard array of long shapes resembling battleship-gray submarines four feet in length.
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As it turns out. mulberries are not only edible but nutritious, containing many vitamins and minerals. Not only this, but every part of the tree—leaves, bark, and roots—is edible, though the berry stems should be boiled and eaten sparsely as they can be toxic in larger portions.
Mulberry trees are easy to plant and grow but need at least one inch of rain per week during their growing season. I had seen only trouble and grief in keeping my mulberry tree but had overlooked its goodness and had it torn out of my property. But these fat channel cats knew a good thing when they saw it and would freely gorge themselves on its fruit for months.
Mulberries may never become a grocery favorite because once ripened and picked they bruise easily and begin to spoil within three days. The height of the tree and the staggered development of the berries render harvesting difficult, dangerous, and inefficient. Besides, raspberries and blackberries are tastier and more economically feasible to culture, harvest, transport, and sell. Nevertheless, mulberry trees remain a personal favorite; the weathered, twisted old ones are especially to be admired. Naturally seeded at a good distance from buildings and sidewalks, they cease to be a nuisance to us humans and become valuable to birds, raccoons, squirrels, and other creatures—even fish! These wonderful trees are easily spotted along the banks of rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds all over Kentucky and the southern United States. But it took a channel cat to teach me something I could not have found out by myself.
The first step in all true science is observation of your subject of interest. Beware that isolating your subject from its native environment and its many relationships to other creatures may change much and lead to strange and skewed opinions. Look carefully, wait, and look again. Try to suspend judgment, always suspecting prejudice, impatience, and parochial self-interest in your most scientific and rational methods. Above all, understand that Providence has a greater interest in manifesting the glory of His creation than you do in discovering it. But for this conviction, you will need faith and prayer.
Featured photo by Milos Prelevic on Unsplash.