SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE. 669 



The little valley where Captain Carles made his experiments, and 

 where I was born,, belongs to the Commune of Valleraugue. At the 

 time of which I speak, they harvested scarcely 4,400 lbs. of very poor 

 cocoons, that sold for very little. Recently there were produced, before 

 the malady of which I shall presently speak, 440,000 lbs. of excellent 

 quality, valued on an average at 2| or 2|- francs per pound. At this 

 price, a million of silver money found its way each year into this little 

 commune of not more than 4,000 inhabitants. 



Let me remark that this money went not alone to the rich. The 

 small proprietors, the day-laborers, those even who owned not the 

 least land, had the greatest part. In fact, most of the easy proprie- 

 tors did not raise their own silk-worms ; they contracted for them in 

 this way : The laborer received a certain quantity of eggs of the silk- 

 worm on the condition of giving a fifth of the cocoons for an ounce 

 of eggs ; they received, besides, enough mulberry-leaves to nourish 

 all the worms from these eggs, plus a certain quantity to boot. All 

 the cocoons above this constituted the wages or gain of the raiser. 



You see, we had resolved in our mountains this problem, so often 

 encountered and still unsettled, of the association of capital and labor ; 

 and resolved it in the best possible way for both. The interest of the 

 proprietor was, in this case, identical with that of the rearer, and re- 

 ciprocally ; for the success of a good workman would equally benefit 

 both parties, and the poor workman could profit only according to his 

 work. 



Now, this labor was in reality of little account. Until after the 

 fourth moulting, when the silk-worm is preparing to make his cocoon, 

 the rearing of the worms can be performed by the women and chil- 

 dren while the father pursues his ordinary occupation. Only after the 

 fourth moult is he obliged to interrupt his work, and occupy himself, 

 in his turn, in the gathering of leaves. The rearing ended, an indus- 

 trious family and such are not rare with us will have, on an average, 

 from 250 to 500 francs of profit. This bright silver, added to the re- 

 sources of the year, this profit obtained without the investment of 

 capital, seconded by the wise conduct of our mountaineer Cevennols, 

 leads rapidly to competency. At the end of a few years, the laborer, 

 who had nothing, possesses a little capital to buy some corner of rock, 

 which, by his intelligent industry, he quickly transforms into fertile 

 soil, and in his turn becomes a proprietor. 



What I am telling you is not fancy. I speak of facts that have 

 occurred under my own eyes, and that I well know. In the country, 

 and particularly on the soil of our old mountains, people are not 

 strangers to each other, as in our great cities. Between the gentle- 

 man and the peasant there are not the same barriers as between the 

 citizen and the laborer in towns. When a child, I played with all my 

 little neighbors ; I knew the most secret nooks of the eight or ten 

 houses composing the modest hamlet which bordered the place where 



