302 Transactions of the 



SILK CULTUKE. 

 Statement of Ed. Muller, of Nevada. 

 To the Gold Medal Committee: 



Gentlemen: My exhibition in the fifth department was a represen- 

 tation of the silk business, from the silkworm eggs to the eggs again, 

 showing cocoons hatching and feeding in every stage of growth to full 

 size, and until they were spinning cocoons. Also showing the moths 

 hatching from the cocoon, and laying the eggs again. In fact, I showed 

 all the conditions of a cocoonery in full operation. My exhibition was 

 but a small edition of my own cocoonery, as it has been sbown in 

 Nevada during each Summer for years past. The experiments con- 

 ducted by myself and others for a term of years have demonstrated 

 beyond a doubt that the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas are most 

 admirably adapted to the cultivation of the mulberry tree and the feed- 

 ing of the silkworm — to silk culture in all its parts. I regard it only 

 as a matter of time to see our hills and mountain sides covered with 

 mulberry plantations, and the silk industry prospering everywhere in 

 that portion of our State in all its glory, employing thousands of 

 people portions of the year in rearing the insect and other portions of 

 the year in reeling the silk and preparing the same for the factory. 

 There is no other industry in our State, in my humble opinion, that can 

 be made so beneficial to our people and the State at the same time as 

 silk culture. But to bring it up to this beneficial position something 

 more than individual exertion is necessary. Our people are unac- 

 customed to the care and strict attention that the successful prosecution 

 of this industry requires. They are ignorant of the first rudiments of 

 its requirements, and not inclined to engage in new industries. 



But the art of managing the business in all its stages is easily learned, 

 and if the industrial societies and the State Legislature will give it the 

 benefit of their fostering care it may in a few years be generally intro- 

 duced. 1 would have no extravagant premiums given for the cultiva- 

 tion of trees, but I believe that a small premium offered by the State for 

 each one hundred pounds of cocoons of good quality, or for each twenty- 

 five pounds of reeled silk, would be a most judicious expenditure of some 

 of the State's money. Such legislation would call attention to the in- 

 dustry and show that it had the approval of the State. Silk culture and 

 wine culture flourish in the same counties and require the same con- 

 ditions of soil and climate, and are both well adapted to the foothills. 

 Wine culture has already obtained a firm footing and is past the neces- 

 sity of State aid. Not so with silk culture. It needs encouragement, 

 and will well repay that encouragement. I have done what I could 

 during the last ten years to give this industry my countenance and en- 

 couragement in the county in which I live, and through my exertions 

 this county — County of Nevada — stands foremost as a silk growing 

 county in the State. In Nevada we do not consider it necessary or 

 even advisable to put out large plantations of trees or build expensive 

 buildings for cocooneries in order to enter upon the business success- 

 fully or profitably. 



A few trees set out around the place as shade or ornamental trees 

 will at the same time answer for furnishing the leaves for the worms. 

 No better or more beautiful trees than ihe white mulberry or moretti 



