TEA AND SILK FARMIXG IN NEW ZEALAND. 191 



be satisfied that the industry would long ago have taken rank 

 among our most cherished employments. True, the cultivation 

 of the mulberrv, and the rearing of silkworms here and there in 

 the British Islands, have not been without a certain amount of 

 encouragement, as at Poole, in Dorsetshire, in 1788 ; by Captain 

 Mason at Aldershot some years ago, and at present at liis resi- 

 dence. Manor House, Yateley, Farnborough ; and in the suburbs 

 of London and elsewhere frequently ; but the success hitherto 

 met with has been that of persevering and enthusiastic amateurs, 

 to whom an immediate financial triumph has not been the chief 

 object. 



Among those who have already striven to introduce or promote 

 the culture of the mulberry and preparation of silk in our 

 colonies may be mentioned Mr. Powal, at Cape of Good Hope ; 

 Mr. Charles Brady, of ISTew South Wales ; Mr. Coote, of Queens- 

 land ; Mr. Davenport, of Adelaide ; Mr. Barlee, of Western 

 Australia ; and Mrs. Bladen Xeill, of the Murray Eiver, Australia, 

 to the last of whom belongs the honour of creating the " Vic- 

 toria Ladies' Serici cultural Company, Limited," New South 

 Wales, with offices in Melbourne and London. This company — 

 managed and worked entirely by ladies with a board of advice 

 consisting of eight gentlemen — was projected for the purpose of 

 mulberry culture, silk farming, &c., and was intended to spread 

 its operations all over the Australian colonies, including Xew 

 Zealand and probably Fiji. One of the first spots chosen by the 

 company for a mulberry plantation pro^dng unsuitable, the 

 shrubs were afterw^ards transferred to their present site on the 

 Murray Eiver, the Government of Victoria very considerately 

 awarding the ladies a sum of £700 as compensation for their 

 lost time. Here the association, with a band of w^omen and 

 girls, assisted by a few Chinamen, prosecuted the w^ork on 

 land, and in a climate pronounced by Mr. William Brocklehurst, 

 M.P. for Macclesfield, " so superior that it must be pre-eminently 

 suited for the production of the finest silk in the world." This 

 most interesting association has, of course, met with disappoint- 

 ments and successes, some of which we w^ould like to chronicle, 

 but must through the exigencies of space refrain. A few 

 statistics, however, will serve as an illustration of what remark- 

 able pecuniary results may be anticipated from sericiculture in 

 a suitable climate, when prosecuted with the intelligence and 

 energy which has already characterised the ladies of Victoria. 

 The particulars of the following diagram were furnished by 

 Miss Mary Hiles,* the company's manager in London, and is 

 intended to show from previous experience the cost of establish- 

 ing a small mulberry plantation in the Murray district, a year's 



* Since this paragi'apli was penned the writer learns that tlic London agency 

 has been abandoned. 



