SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE. 



671 



of these valleys. Let me sketch for you the one I know best, the one 

 in which I was born. It is composed of ascents so steep that, when 

 two neighboring houses are placed one above the other, the cellar of 

 the upper one is on the same level as the garret of the lower one. 

 There is not much earth on these declivities, and the rocks stick out 

 everywhere. But it is, as it were, from the rocks themselves that 

 our mountaineers make their mulberry-plantations. They proceed 

 in this way: They first break up the rocks, and with the larger 



Fig. 15. 





Sheets op Paper, with Rows op Cocoons prepared por the Exit op the Moths designed 



for laying eggs. 



stones so obtained they raise a wall ; then, with the smaller pieces, 

 they fill up the interval between the wall and the mountain. This 

 done, they bring upon their backs, from the bottom of the valley, soil 

 and manure enough entirely to fill the space. This is what is called 

 a traversier, and it is in this soil that most of the mulberry-trees are 

 planted. I have seen a bridge built across a mountain-stream ex- 

 pressly to give foothold for two or three of these precious trees. To 

 pay for all this preparation the produce should be very great. The 

 following figures give the average value of ground planted to mulber- 

 ries for 20 years : 



and even then the money yielded five per cent. This price, which 

 some would not believe when I told them, has been officially confirmed 

 by M. de Lavergne, in his remarkable writings upon French agricul- 

 ture. This value of land, and the way it has been obtained, explain 

 the nature of our country's wealth. With the exception of some fami- 

 lies recently enriched by the silk-manufacture and the silk-trade, the 

 level of this wealth, although very high, is more of the nature of gen- 

 eral competence than of great fortunes. Industry and economy have 



