464 [Senate 



commodity ; and therefore, that this branch of Home Industry, can 

 be extended as rapidly as correct information on the subject can be 

 diffused ; increasing and diversifying the employments, and augment- 

 ing the comforts of the people, and saving millions of dollars now- 

 sent abroad for silks, and lost to the country. By the use of appro- 

 priate means, we believe that in twenty to thirty years the silk pro- 

 ducts of this country may be made to enter as fully into the exchanges, 

 and all the financial interests of the nation, as our cotton products now 

 do. 



With these views, and in accordaiice with the general designs of 

 our association, established as it was to promote all the great interests 

 of our country, it was determined a year ago to make a special effort 

 to bring the silk subject before the public in a form to command con- 

 fidence, and urge the whole business forward. We therefore, under 

 the authority of the Institute, issued circulars, proposing a JYafional 

 Convention of silk growers and manufacturers, to be held in New- 

 York during the sixteenth annual Fair. We also invited them to 

 bring or send samples of their silk, raw and manufactured, for exhi- 

 bition, and also to furnish the convention with written statements of 

 their labors. 



The results are before the public. The exhibition of silks consti- 

 tuted a prominent and most attractive feature of our Fair. In the 

 convention we were happy to see delegates from the East, the West, 

 the North, and the South, and that confidence in the essential merits 

 of the silk business characterized all their deliberations, and the reso- 

 lutions finally adopted. All their proceedings, together with nume- 

 rous letters from all parts of the country, have been spread before 

 the public in the form of a repori, making a pamphlet of eighty pa- 

 ges of closely printed matter, double columns, embodying a vast 

 amount of reliable information no where else to be found. One edi- 

 tion has been published in New-York by Saxton & Miles. In Boston 

 the work has been stereotyped by T. R. Marvin, through the liberal- 

 ity of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and a few public spirited 

 individuals, that it may be sold at a very low rate. 



We are happy also to say that the Legislature of New-York has 

 printed tw^o thousand copies of the report, a part of the general re- 

 port t)f the Institute, and that the newspaper press have aided much 

 in spreading the facts thus collected. 



In this way the movement has resulted in great good. Public at- 

 tention has been arrested — much prejudice has been surmounted, and 

 a very desirable measure of public interest awakened. 



Our course is now a plain one. It is to follow up the good work 

 so auspiciously commenced by a series of annual conventions and an- 

 nual reports^ to be continued as long as the interests of the business 

 seem to demand. Facts, facts, well attested facts, spread before 

 th6 people, is all that is needed to make our widely extended country 

 the greatest silk growing and silk manufacturing country on the globe. 

 This consummation of our hopes can be secured. It must be done. 

 We therefore announce a second silk convention, to be held at the Re- 

 pository of the Institute, on Wednesday, Oct. 9th, at 10 o'clock, A. 



