FRANKLIN'S PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



433 



was laid by the experience of the Indians and many of their secrets the 

 philosophers hoped to gather from them for the common benefit of man. 

 The hopes of many protectionists of a later time who have labored 

 strenuously to encourage the development of native industries were 

 anticipated by the Philosophical Society. Its members early had a care 

 for the silkworm and the mulberry tree. Franklin sounded the note 

 in a letter written in 1770, and the venerable Peter S. Duponceau, long 

 the president of the society, a distinguished law}^er and philologist who 

 in his youth came hither from France to serve Baron von Steuben as 

 his private secretary during the Revolutionary war, carried on exten- 

 sive experiments in silkworm culture at his own expense. The Penn- 

 sylvania Assembly was asked to pass a bill establisliing a public fila- 

 ture in Philadelphia. Eggs were to be distributed and bounties paid 

 for a term of years to the most successful producers of the cocoon. 



Building of the American Philosophical Society. 



While the philosophers were not able to convince the legislature that 

 public duty lay in this direction, a private association to encourage 

 silkworm propagation was afterward organized under the auspices of 

 the Society and it received £1,000 from the Pennsylvania Assembly 

 in furtherance of its ends. 



The wine grape also greatly appealed to the interest of the Society, 

 which made a collection of receipts for the manufacture of wine for- 

 warded to it by farmers and other colonists who had had experience 

 of the vine in America. The uncleared land was well covered with 

 wild vines, and it was assumed that by a little experimentation the 

 colonies could be made to yield wine fruit abundantly. 



vol.. LX. — 28. 



