17 



made to contribute very materially to the wealth of the State, while, at 

 the same time, the success of the enterprise would tend to stimulate the 

 reclamation and utilization of the hundreds of thousands of acres of tule 

 lands now comparatively worthless. 



SILK CULTURE. 



Through the successful experiments and untiring exertions of the late 

 Louis Prevost, a Frenchman by birth, assisted by a few friends, also 

 adopted citizens from the silk producing countries of Europe, this indus- 

 try was, some four or five years since, brought prominently before the 

 public. The conviction that our State was eminently adapted to the 

 culture of silk, and that its extensive cultivation would prove of great 

 benefit to the commonwealth, by increasing the labor and general pros- 

 perity of the country, as well as by inducing a most valuable immigra- 

 tion, became very general — almost universal. 



The Legislature, at its sessions of eighteen hundred and sixty-six and 

 eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, passed laws offering premiums for the 

 cultivation of mulberry trees and the production of silk cocoons. These 

 laws have had the desired effect. The}" have not only induced a con- 

 siderable number of our native born and then resident adopted citizens 

 to engage in the business with energy and zeal, and with most gratifying 

 results, but they have attracted the attention of that class of foreigners 

 which they were intended to reach, and have already introduced into 

 our State a large number of most valuable immigrants, skilled in all the 

 various departments of this rich industry, and have also laid the founda- 

 tion for still greater valuable additions to our present population. Owing 

 to an unfortunate difference between the popular construction of these 

 laws, which was received and acted upon by those whom they induced 

 to engage in the business, and the construction lately placed upon them 

 by our Courts, we fear that very many of the benefits intended by the 

 Legislature and reasonably anticipated from the liberal execution of 

 them will be lost to our State. 



The persons who were induced to go into the business were generally 

 agriculturists of small means, and in anticipation of promised assistance 

 in time of need, and relying with implicit confidence upon such assist- 

 ance, they incurred expenses and contracted obligations which now, 

 without such assistance, it will be hard for them to meet. 



Thus they are not only crippled in the prosecution of the business in 

 the future, but are to some extent disheartened and discouraged. Par- 

 ticularly is this the case with those of foreign birth, through whom, by 

 their influence with their friends in the old countries, it was anticipated 

 we should acquire a large immigration of valuable skilled labor. 



We are credibly informed that the very extreme of claims that would 

 have been made on the State, under the most liberal construction of 

 these laws, as understood and acted upon by the claimants, would not 

 have exceeded twenty-five thousand dollars — a sum trifling when com- 

 pared to the benefits the people are likely to receive from the enterprise 

 which has, by the inducements held out, been introduced. We are also 

 informed that if tbis sum were granted to and distributed among the 

 claimants, it would at once be added to the capital already invested in 

 this valuable industry, thus encouraging its recipients to renewed exer- 

 tion, and securing, beyond a peradventure, the early and permanent 



