18 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



SILK CULTURE. 



Mr. President and Members of the Societij : 



This is really a new topic for me to handle, although I have 

 advocated it both publicly and privately for many years as a coming 

 American industry. It is also a new branch of our Society, and it 

 naturally should be a branch for horticulture. 



My hopes are that the horticulturists all over the United States 

 will take hold of this very important matter, and with the help of 

 the good press, the help of public lecturers, the help of true states- 

 men, and the help of legislatures, in assisting in an enterprise worth 

 miUions and mUlions of dollars^ besides the moral effect, in giving 

 our young and and old people, even our cripples, an easy and profita- 

 ble employment. With the help of our State Industrial and Agri- 

 cultural Colleges and State Societies, and last, but not least, with the 

 help of our true and patriotic women, we iriU and must succeed. 



It would be against all history of our lightning-pushing and 

 advanced American people, not to succeed in an undertaking where 

 there is not only pleasure and patriotism, but ''millions in it.'' There 

 can, and should, be no such word for us as fail ; but, before we come 

 to the practical work, the statistics, the '' millions in it," let us have 

 a brief note of the history of silk culture. 



Grape culture, and I may say, fruit culture, if we count Ohio 

 and the never-forgotten Nick Longworth out, is a Bloomington child, 

 now thirty years old; and if my life is spared, with the help of this 

 and other mentioned societies, I will devote my coming days to the 

 enterprise of silk culture. Let me be plain just here, and give the 

 highest praise to our Mennonite leaders who carried silk culture into 

 Kansas and Nebraska years ago; to the noble French Count who 

 started the wonderful Socialistic Colony of Silkville, in Kansas, with 

 barrels full of French gold, and with the help of one of France's 

 best and most intelligent silk scientists; Prof. L. S. Crozier and Mr. 

 Abraham Thiessen, of Fairbarry, Nebraska; and to a few other 

 patriotic foreign men and American women. 



Silk culture, according to history, is old, very old, and began 

 four thousand years before Christ, in China; but, according to the 

 unschooled age, we find silk culture mentioned in Chinese history 

 2,602 years before Christ. A daughter of the Chinese Emperor com- 

 menced silk culture in the Province of Kotham. 140 years before 

 Christ_, and another daughter brought silk culture to Tibet. 



Aristotle, the Greek, speaks of silk culture; and Alexander 

 brought the same, during his wars, to Greece. 



Silk became a great luxury in Rome, and laws were even made 

 against the wearing of silk dresses by the poorer classes. The 

 Thibetans brought silk culture to Italy, and in 220 we find looms to 

 weave the raw silk in Italy. In 555, Persian monks brought silk- 

 worm eggs and mulberry seeds from Serinda to Constantinople. From 



