218 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



nurseries, and laboring with her own hands to encourage the people and 

 honor this great industry. 



The silk industry embraces seven special branches: The rearing of 

 the silkworm trees, called silkworm nurseries. The trees mostly used 

 are the mulberry family, of which there are four prominent varieties — 

 morus multicaulus, morus alba, moras moretti and morus niger. The 

 mulberry most commonly used is the morus multicaulus, established 

 wherever the trees can best be raised, where the temperature is regular 

 and moderate, although artificial climate may be produced by heat. 

 The best temperature is from seventy to seventy-five degrees Fahren- 

 heit. These mulberry trees, as we generally found them, are planted in 

 rows in Asia — not unlike our corn and cotton fields — and again in 

 squares, the rows being from four to six feet wide, the trees from one to 

 two feet apart. These are carefully cultivated, and cut or trimmed down, 

 first to the ground, subsequently to a stem or stump two to five feet 

 high, which is thus far more productive and prolific, easier managed, 

 more valuable, saving much time, labor and expense in gathering leaves; 

 and thus two and three crops can be and are obtained annually, leaving a 

 few occasionally to grow up at intervals to bear fruit for the birds to 

 feed upon, and thus protect the young ones, grape vines and other fruits. 

 This has proved highly beneficial. Sometimes they plant olive trees, 

 from ten to fourteen feet apart, to protect and shelter the tender mulber- 

 ries from the sun. 



The trimming down of the trees, although giving a desolate appear- 

 ance for the time, it is claimed, produces more nutritious branches and 

 leaves, and are fed to the worms on the branches, instead of stripping 

 leaves, as most breeders do here. 



The similarity of climate between that of Asia and California leads to 

 a similarity of rearing the trees and worms, and, in fact, this plan has 

 naturally been adopted here as that best calculated to produce the great- 

 est am%int of silk with the least labor and greatest profit. 



The next is breeding of silkworms, which, to be successful, depends 

 upon good, pure eggs, fresh mulberry, leaves, care and attention. 



In the early days of the Roman Emperors, the silk production of 

 China was only second to the culture of rice by which to live, and Mar- 

 cus Aurelius sent an embassy, or commission, to China, to investigate 

 and to introduce it to his empire. Babylon, Persia and India were 

 largely engaged in the silk culture from time immemorial. The rich 

 and costly Babylonian garments were made of silk, worked in silver and 

 gold, for which the Roman Emperors, according to Herodotus, paid from 

 forty thousand dollars to one hundred and forty thousand dollars ; and 

 for the stealing of one of these " goodl} 7 garments " Achan lost his life. 

 These rich, lustrous silks were interwoven with the rich, silky fleece of 

 the celebrated Angora, Kirman and Cashmere shawl goats, and with gold. 

 Portions of Persia, Babylonia, Assyria, India, Asia Minor and Syria, 

 through which it passed, were, and are still, centres of silk culture and 

 silk manufacture. Damask, from Damascus, a specimen of which I 

 hold in my hand, was raised and manufactured in Damascus, as well as 

 these beautiful silk embroidered specimens, and to this day you see them 

 rear their silk amid the desolate ruins of Babylon, and over those his- 

 torical lands, almost under the shadow of the tower of Babel, or Birs 

 Nimroud, itself, as the}' did three thousand years ago. 



The commerce of silk was carried from Cathay to China two hundred 

 years B. C. into India, Persia, Greece and Italy, and, almost strange in 

 this changeable world, the name has remained almost the same, with 



