256 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



leaves will produce one pound of reeled silk. Thus we would have six 

 hundred and forty pounds of reeled silk as the annual product per acre. 

 Reeled silk, of poor quality even, is worth seven dollars per pound any- 

 where in the world. California produced and reeled silk, from the trivol- 

 tine Japanese worms, has been sold in San Francisco, within a month 

 past, at nine dollars per pound, and that from the annual varieties would 

 be worth from twelve to fifteen dollars per pound. Taking seven dollars 

 as the standard, and we have, as the gross product of one acre of land, 

 four thousand four hundred and eighty dollars per annum Now let us 

 see what must be deducted for expenses: Rent of land and cocoonery, 

 we will say, would be fifty dollars; cultivation of land and feeding worms 

 would not exceed eight hundred dollars; one person, say a Chinaman or 

 a white girl or boy, whose labor is worth one dollar per day, can reel 

 one-half pound of silk per day, equal to one thousand two hundred and 

 eighty dollars for reeling six hundred and forty pounds of silk. Then 

 our account would stand thus : 



Gross receipts per acre.. 

 Total rent and expenses. 



Net profit 



$4,480 

 2,140 



$2,340 



This seems like a big sum to be realized in one year, on one acre of 

 land, as clear profit. Particularly does it seem so to us American and 

 California farmers, who think we are farming on a small scale unless we 

 have from five hundred to one thousand acres under cultivation. It is a 

 big sum and a big profit; but it can be realized. Not, however, until 

 we change our ideas and our systems of farming. We must put in more 

 labor and less land. We must produce more valuable and less bulky 

 products. So long as we are content to exhaust our soil in the produc- 

 tion of wheat, at an annual average profit of from fifteen to twenty 

 dollars per acre, and exchange the same for silk produced in foreign 

 countries at so much greater annual profit per acre, we shall remain a 

 poor agricultural people. 



And when we can produce that silk at so much greater advantage 

 than can those countries from which we are receiving: it in exchange for 

 our wheat, and neglect to do so, we can hardly escape being counted a 

 stupid people. 



The production of silk is as easy and as simple to learn as is the produc- 

 tion of wheat or any other staple product of our State. The trees are as 

 easily, and much more easily and cheaply grown than fruit trees. Any- 

 body, in one hour's time in a cocoonery, can be taught how to manage 

 and feed the worms and save and cure the cocoons for market. In three 

 or four days time and two or three weeks practice, a woman or girl can 

 become an expert in reeling silk, and then the whole process is mastered. 



A reel costs but twenty dollars. So it will be seen that with but very 

 little outlay of time and money, every family in our State who owns an 

 acre of land can, in one year's time, become the producer of the most 

 valuable and profitable article that grows from the soil, to wit, silk. 



There is no necessity of any great outlay for a cocoonery or other pre- 

 paration to go into the business. Every man who has a barn or stable 

 can use this for a cocoonery for the time required for feeding worms 



