148 [Senate 



insure a healthy stock of silk worms, and a profitable return from their 

 labors, but to give them sufficient room, a regular and full supply of 

 suitable food, a strict regard to cleanliness, and a proper ventilation of 

 their apartments. 



In excessively hot, damp, or sultry weather, in the last age, the dis- 

 ease known as the yelloios sometimes occurs. Where open feeding is 

 adopted, some fine air-slacked lime may be sifted on the worms, once 

 or twice a day, before feeding ; and the diseased and dead worms care- 

 fully picked out and thrown away. In a regular cocoonery properly 

 ventilated, and supplied with an air furnace, dry warm air should be 

 made to circulate freely : But if the temperature is above 80 or 85 de- 

 grees, the ventilating apparatus should be constantly employed, until a 

 change of weather occurs, or the disease disappears. 



In apartments where worms are fed, or cocoons are stored, means 

 must be employed to protect them from the depredations of rats and 

 mice, or they will be found destructive to both. 



Reeling. — -We have now arrived at another branch of the silk busi- 

 ness, which more properly comes under the head of manufacturing. 

 Every farmer who engages in the silk culture, in order to avail him- 

 self of an additional profit, should provide his family with a suitable 

 reel ; by the use of which, after a little experience, he will be enabled 

 to offer his silk in market in a form that will greatly enhance its value, 

 and much reduce the expense and trouble of transportation. 



Reels can now be procured in almost any of the principal cities, at a 

 small cost ; or they can be made by any ingenious farmer or ca""penter. 



The reel now uniformly used, is that known as the Piedmontese, 

 (the plan and dimensions of which can be found in the second number, 

 page 64 of the " Journal of the American Silk Society," Baltimore, 

 1839, by G. B. Smith.) All attempts to improve this reel in its gene- 

 ral principle, I believe have failed. At Economy, however, they have 

 made an addition, which may be found useful. It consists of two pair 

 of whirls, made of wire, in the form of the aspel of a reel, about four 

 indies long, and two and a half inches across at the ends ; the wires 

 being bent in the middle, leaving them about one and a half inches 

 across from arm to arm, making the circumference about six inches. 

 These whirls are set in an iron frame, and run each upon two points or 

 centres ; each pair is set equidistant, on a direct line, about 8 inches 

 apart, between the first guide and that on the transverse bar. Instead 



