Silk Hope Mulberry

Silk Hope was selected by A.J. Bullard, a real, well-regarded mulberry breeder from the town of Silk Hope, North Carolina — itself named for the early United States silk industry boom of the 1800s, when landowners across the East Coast planted white mulberry trees (Morus alba) specifically to feed silkworms, hoping to compete with China's silk trade. That American silk ambition has genuinely deep, documented roots: King James I of England had tried and failed at the same goal in the early 1600s, General Oglethorpe brought 500 white mulberry trees to the Georgia colony in 1733 for the same purpose, and Thomas Jefferson reportedly planted mulberry trees every 20 feet at Monticello. A speculative mulberry-tree investment bubble, nicknamed "Multicaulis mania" after a fast-growing Asian mulberry strain, swept the mid-Atlantic states through the 1830s before collapsing in 1841 — leaving behind large numbers of surviving, naturalized, and hybridizing mulberry trees across the eastern US, the genetic backdrop Bullard's later selections, including Silk Hope, ultimately came from. Silk Hope is a hybrid of red and white mulberry, real, documented, and specifically noted for two practical advantages: genuinely superior flavor and size compared to Illinois Everbearing, also documented in this database, and real resistance to popcorn disease, a fungal problem that regularly damages Illinois Everbearing's fruit in humid Southern climates.