284 Transactions op the 



EXHIBITION OF KEELED SILK. 

 Statement op Ed. Muller, op Nevada. 

 To the Gold Medal Committee: 



The undersigned submits the following as his reasons why his exhibit 

 of silk at the State Fair of eighteen hundred and seventy-one should be 

 honored with a gold medal. The producer, in my opinion, should also 

 be a reeler of silk. The two departments of labor can be conducted by 

 the same family with good advantage. As soon as the cocoons are pro- 

 duced and gathered they may be put into the water while the moth is 

 still alive and reeled. This adds the labor and value to the product 

 before it is put into the market, It furnishes labor to the country 

 people. If the cocoons are put into the market before being reeled the 

 profits of the reeling goes to the manufacturer, and the labor is per- 

 formed in the city instead of the country, where the expense of living 

 is greater than in the country, and consequently the expense of the silk 

 itself will be increased. 



Silk culture is one of those kinds of business that is most successful 

 and most profitable when conducted in a small way in the family as an 

 adjunct to other farming operations, rather than as a large and exclusive 

 operation. It is one of the best and most appropriate occupations for 

 children. It teaches them to notice and study the operations of nature; 

 to acquire habits of thought and observation. It begets habits of 

 industry and thrift, and accustoms them to feel the responsibility and 

 care of something especially committed to their charge. The reeling of 

 the silk is especially well adapted to the girls of the family. The work 

 is light and easy, but requires the strictest attention and care, and is 

 consequently one of the best of schools for both mind and body. 



If all our people in the mountain districts would plant a few mul- 

 berry trees and raise a few cocoons each year, they would soon learn 

 that it is one of the most pleasing and profitable of occupations they can 

 engage in. I have taken the lead in this industry in the County of 

 Nevada, and through my persuasion and efforts many families are more 

 or less interested in it. We have now in the county hundreds of thou- 

 sands of mulberry trees cultivated with direct reference to silk culture, 

 nearly all of which have been planted at my instance or suggestion. A 

 number of those who planted their trees but two or three years since, 

 have already been greatly benefited by it. I have also taken a great 

 deal of pains to teach the children the art of reeling the silk from the 

 cocoon, and to inculcate the idea that the reeling should go hand in hand 

 with the production. This fact, taken in connection with my small ex- 

 hibition of reeled silk, gives to it an interest and merit which alone it 

 would not possess, and upon this fact I base my claim in a great degree 

 to the medal of the third department. 



Others may have had more showy and more extensive exhibitions, 

 but the circumstances connected with such exhibitions add to them 

 no special interest or merit, except such as are usually attached to 

 ordinary manufacturing operations of the factories of tho towns or cities, 

 while my exhibition of reeled silk indicates the beginning of an industry 

 that if properly encouraged by the State Agricultural Society, and other 

 local industrial societies throughout the State, will ere long do much to 

 induce the poor people of those towns and cities to seek healthful and 



