•:-< 



THE YEAR AGRICULTURE. 



chance* of success in propagation were best at ' here the plant known as Palms 



Christi is al ..nd where it would be a gre;i the poor but industrious 



popular i, in which expensive attempts to introduce the mulberry have 



wholly faile-J on account of the poverty of the soil. In carrying out the new plan proposed, 



.:im Reed, the governor of Malta, lent h tnd, after a - . - trials and 



failures r more than two was attained. Frvm Malta, 



eggs have since been sent to Piedmont and Southern Italy, Egypt, and moat parts of the 



.mean. 



Mr i.i. W. Kendall, in writing to the New Orleans Picayune, from Paris, gives the following 



additional in .ting this nev. - rm. He --ay? : It appears this Ml 



. native of China; can live in Europe, and can thrive not only oa the 

 leav Palma Christi, but on lettuce and weeping willow, and even wild endive, and 



rep: era! times in the course of the year. The name given new 



<-wonn is the Bombyx cynthia. Everybody is familiar enough with the - 

 worm thanks to the morus-multicaulis fever '.) to know that the silk in which the worm en- 

 tombs himself is composed of an uninterrupted thread, which, in turn, c : twin tubes 

 laid parallel by the worm in the act ofr spinning, and glu-. her by a kind of varnish 



which covers their whole surface - appear- 



ance of a silk-thread, as seen under a microscope, 

 is well exhibited in the annexed engraving.) The 

 numerous windings of the cocoon-threads are also 

 connected with a gum which ved, 



allowing the silk to be readily wound upon re 



:ded the worm is not allowed to pass through 

 its ehrjaa state, (which is prevented by ex- 

 posing the chrysalis to a high degree of tempera- 

 ture. ) The chrysalis pierces the cocoon, the silk 

 cannot be wound, and it is u*ed as doss, and is 

 carded i as cotton, which, from the shortness of 

 mot be spun until it has been carded) 

 before it is employed. 



The cocoon of the Bombyx cynthia is not en- 

 tire' . and the chr fter becoming a butterfly, may escape from n with- 

 out injuring the value of the silk if the cocoon of the Bombyx cynthia can 

 be v- r will not be rifice the grub to save ti. 

 reserved ap- in a very singular manner. On 

 the >e grub, and through which it must come ocoon is terminated in a sort 

 of point, which is formed by the convergence of a crown of running 



.-olong the side of the cocoon, which renders I impass- 



able from the out>Me : while it is easily traversed by the imprisoned grub, which, as soon 

 as he is transformed, is eng •■ . rt of a hopper, (like a mill-i. s of 



which are stretched wider as it moves farther on, at the same time that ti. 

 exe: ty, a pressure favorable to development of the butterfly's newly-acquired 



and large wing-. The stiff threads which ate the point of the cocoon are dou> 



glued, < i on each other, so as to remain unbroken, in such a way that the cocoon 



remains in its integrity after the hatching and the flight of the butterfly. It is not jet 

 known whether the cocoon can be wound : it is certain that Alcan's process (boiling) is in- 

 eftv -olve the gum which unites the thread j but experiments made with an 



alkali and water appear to succeed. I think the cultivation of this worm may be pursued 

 with the greatest advantage in all our sea-board Southern States. 



Silk in California. 



At a meeting of the California Academj - Dr. Behr 



exhibited a specimen of native silk, the product of the Giturnia eeanolha, which he con- 



