224 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



pioneer weaver is present. The material needed and now raised will 

 soon be supplied from your own cocooneries ; and you are most favorably 

 situated for its best importation from China and Japan to California, 

 where materials of cheap living will enable them to labor cheaper than 

 on the Atlantic border or Europe. Silk factories employ from one hun- 

 dred to one thousand laborers, giving steady employment, which will 

 do much to populate California. From fifty thousand to seventy-five 

 thousand persons are employed in the Atlantic States, in this branch, 

 who may find employment here ; but as the manufacturing is premature, 

 and an important branch by itself, we dismiss it. As to you, Cali- 

 fornians, the present is the rearing of the mulberry and cocoons, pure 

 fresh eggs for which a demand has sprung up abroad, from the failure 

 and silkworm disease in Europe and spreading to Asia. France lost 

 twenty million dollars by this malady last year, so the demand for pure 

 silkworm eggs will increase, and are worth twenty-five dollars to thirty 

 dollars per pound. I paid five dollars per ounce in Asia, to send to this 

 country. Pure eggs are only to be had in Japan and South America; 

 and there fears are entertained, and signs of the disease appear. 



This silkworm disease or malady is to be dreaded, and a preventive is 

 better than a cure. Various theories have been given. Some ascribe it to 

 the mulberry; others say it is like the cattle disease or Asiatic cholera; 

 others say forced breeding and breeding in and in ; want of proper care 

 and ventilation. Investigation discovers spots of a peculiar form and 

 appearance in the tissues of the diseased worm at the bottom of the 

 digestive canal, called corpuscules. They are oval, transparent, smaller 

 than the globules of human blood. Foreign exchange is desirable where 

 it exists. Contact does not produce disease, but feeding on leaves washed 

 or infected with corpuscules water. The disease is spreading rapidly. 

 All diseased insects should be removed or destroyed. Beauchamp calls 

 it a parasite, and is of vegetable nature, of the order of fermentation, 

 and that remedies of creosote will destroy it, washing the eggs in a 

 solution of creosote. Impregnating vapor through the nursery worms, 

 when hatched in stables of she< nfolds, generallj* did well in France and 

 Turkey. E. Muller, of Nevada, informs me his best eggs are those ex- 

 posed all winter on the trees, at an elevation of eighteen hundred feet 

 above the sea. Make these experiments. 



The affliction can be modified by the alkalinity of the atmosphere; a 

 treatment analogous to the water and salt of Vichy and thermal springs 

 has proved beneficial. If so, Nevada would be a glorious place for 

 treatment, if not rearing silk. France has raised a commission and sent 

 it to China and Japan to study the great silk interests; so I 

 countries of Europe, to perfect their knowledge and benefit th< 

 ments. And in this connection, with these growing interest; 

 before us, might it not be well for our Government to organ 

 commission, to be composed of practical and experienced silk 

 to visit these different silk growing regions of Europe and As 

 purpose of studying the silk interest in all its phases. It m 

 in <n*eat benefits, not only to California but the whole cou I 

 following are some of the best deduced facts collected by the L 

 ities in Europe and Asia : That the silkworm mulberry tree ' ; 



to a temperature of seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit; that f 



the mulberry tree does not pass be}*ond the limit of gray o 



.and thrive together — fine grapes, fine silk, and fine fleece -. 



The mulberry trees can be raised on mountains, in a mean t e 



of forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. We have seen them dot l- 



