Taste of Life: Italian shows Poona farmers to grow mulberry and prosper
Extensive mulberry plantations came up in the villages of Chinchori, Vadgaon, Narayangaon, Savargaon, Gunjalwadi, Shivneri, and Pabal. Cultivation of mulberry was also promoted at Saswad near Poona
Colonial rule impinged on the Indian economy in many ways, and such development was perceived by most Italian traders as fundamentally constricting.
Italians in India had to cope with a system which was designed to allow British traders to operate as comfortably as possible in the local market. Therefore, when operating on the Indian subcontinent they immediately opted for entrepreneurial strategies, and patterns of business organisation meant to minimise the disadvantage that derived from their “outsiders” status. By and large, Italian traders tried to overcome such hindrance by forming close links with Indian natives, a tendency to be extremely open to commercial alliances with ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse economic actors, even in a context marked by a high degree of racial discrimination as was prevalent in India during the Raj.
In November 1837, a peculiar assembly was organised at a garden in Kothrud near Poona. The garden had some 4,000 mulberry trees and it belonged to Signor Giuseppe Mutti who had planted it in several villages across Deccan.
Mutti wanted the villagers to learn to process the fruits to make jam, jelly, sherbets, and other such products and earn money. People initially had showed great anxiety to possess worms to produce cocoons. All dislike on the part of the Brahmins for the making of silk had been overcome due to the untiring efforts of Mutti. He was now confident that the villagers would realise that processing the mulberry fruit was a profitable venture.
Mutti had ventured into sericulture in 1830. His detractors had thought that mulberry would not survive in Deccan. But he proved them wrong. He developed a large plantation in Kothrud. Later, Nana Pansha garden, Ambe Baug, half a begah (measure of land) within the enclosure of the old palace (Shaniwar Wada) at Poona, the garden held by Annasaheb Dhamdhere, and Gore Baug were given to him by the government to plant mulberry trees.
Extensive mulberry plantations came up in the villages of Chinchori, Vadgaon, Narayangaon, Savargaon, Gunjalwadi, Shivneri, and Pabal. Cultivation of mulberry was also promoted at Saswad near Poona. Mutti thought that the soil there was excellent, the water very good, and the climate beautiful.
Plants and seeds were obtained by Mutti from Italy, France, and the Philippines. The mulberry preferred by him was St Helena. He successfully cultivated 14 species of mulberry as standards at Kothrud.
Before Mutti started his experiments, mulberry cultivation was usually conducted throughout southern India on a small scale in a way similar to that observed in Bengal, and in other parts of India. The plant, which was usually of the local kind, Morus indica, was cultivated as a bush. Other varieties such as Morus alba, from China or Europe, and the Morus multicaulis (known also as the “Philippine mulberry”) were also cultivated.
Mutti found three principal faults in the mode of conducting the culture of silk in Bengal – first, the system of training the mulberry as a bush or shrub; second, in the rearing of the silkworm; third, in the reeling of silk.
In the traditional Bengal system, the Indian mulberry plant was not allowed to rise above a foot and a half or two feet, and from the frequent cuttings, it was exhausted about the third year, and obliged to be rooted out. These bushes rarely bore much fruit.
Mutti chose to grow the mulberry as a tree. He established permanent winding places or filatures at Junnar, Dingora, and Narayangaon in 1838. He was able to produce almost 200 pounds of silk at these places. An outlay of ₹1,000 produced Mutti a return of ₹2,724. He received the most satisfactory reports of his silk from London, Glasgow, and Manchester.
But besides making progress in manufacturing silk, he devoted his attention to processing the mulberry fruit. The mulberry bore fruits twice a year, in March and November. That of the St Helena tree, Mutti sold in the bazaar at 5 and 6 pice per seer. For that of the red, 8 pice could be obtained.
He was fascinated by the peculiar advantage of the mulberry, which (like other fruit trees) did not require any person to watch it to prevent it from being plundered or the product being destroyed either by birds or by dew so that they could always rely on obtaining a return for their labour.
The mulberry required only careful attention (the degree of which gradually decreased every year) for the period of about five years when the expense attending its cultivation ceased, and no other labour was required than that of pruning and thinning, which was amply repaid by the fruits and wood obtained. Mutti had no doubt that the natives would be easily induced to devote their attention entirely to the cultivation of the mulberry tree in preference to the fruit trees they cultivated, with little profit to themselves, or “advantage to the country”.
The fruit of the tree could always be turned to some advantage. Good vinegar could be made from it, and sold at a profit; or during the hot weather, very refreshing syrups and sherbets might be procured from it.
In Britain, raspberries were considered superior to strawberries, gooseberries, currants, and mulberries. Most cookbooks published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries would provide recipes for raspberry jam and jelly while asking the readers to mimic those for other berries.
But mulberries could be used in all ways suitable for black- or raspberries but were considered superior to them or almost any other fruit in the matter of jelly-making, having the rich colour and tartness of currant with a little more “body”, but very tender.
Mutti trained men like Wamanrao Ganpule and Sakharam Danee from Poona to process the mulberry fruit to make jam, jelly, and other products. His reports written after 1838 mention hundreds of men from various castes and tribes occupied with the business of selling mulberry fruit and making jam and sherbets. One of his letters written to the Collector of Poona mentions the following recipe - To make Mulberry wine – Shake the ripe or partly ripe berries from the tree to clean sacking or sheeting and place them in a tub where they may be well pounded and mashed. Strain, and to each gallon of juice add three pounds of sugar, placing in a cask with an open bung. This should ferment and be fit for racking off into another cask in six weeks. Will be fit for bottling and use in eight weeks.
For Mulberry brandy, for each quart of juice, a quart of brandy and one pound of sugar were added. It was allowed to stand for six weeks, then filtered and bottled.
Due to Mutti’s efforts, the mulberry fruit and its products from Poona were sold as far as Deoolgaon Raja in Berar and Vadodara in Gujarat.
But Mutti had to face stiff opposition from Dr Lush and Dr Gibson of the Dapooree Botanical Garden. They did not like him preaching against the cultivation of mulberry bushes.
Mutti fell ill in 1842. A couple of years later, doubts about the success of the silk-growing experiment began to be raised. In 1847, a committee was appointed to report on the subject. The two members, Gibson and Mr Davidson, joined in the opinion that any further attempt by the government to grow the mulberry with a view to the making of silk in and near Poona was not likely to succeed. Gibson opined that the excellent results shown by Mutti had been due to artificial stimulation, which deceived both government and himself. Davidson agreed with Gibson. The government ordered that all silk operations should cease.
Mutti’s undertaking was abandoned in 1848. The mulberry trees in Poona slowly disappeared within a few decades.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com
