ON SERICICULTURE. 107 



does in Australia, B. Ricini and the Tusseh moth in India, 

 will derive a highly beneficial result. 



In conclusion I would remark, that the more I see of 

 Sericiculture the more I am persuaded that England has a 

 great role to play therein, not merely at home, in the pro- 

 duction of healthy seed free from disease, in the development 

 of the silk-reeling industry, in teaching her children the art 

 of cultivating silk-worms, that they may carry with them and 

 practise such art in distant colonial climes ; lastly, in improv- 

 ing, by means of the skill and intelligence possessed by her 

 sons, the different processes and machinery requisite in the 

 various industries which must be called into play before the 

 juice of the mulberry or other leaf is changed, through the 

 medium of the silk-worm, into that most precious and 

 beautiful of all fabrics— silk; but also in her colonies, where, 

 in a climate far more salubrious than that of Europe, 

 millions of acres of land, unequalled in natural suitability for 

 growing silk and capable of producing, if properly developed, 

 thousands of bales annually, await cultivation. It is simply 

 astonishing how the inhabitants of Great Britain shut their 

 eyes to the advantages to be derived from silk industry. 

 Had Italy or France possessed such colonies as New Zea- 

 land, Australia or the Cape, they would long ere this have 

 derived enormous revenues from the cultivation and export 

 of silk to Europe. Mr. Brady, fi-om Sydney, writes: — 

 " Not only is there nothing to prevent silk from being raised 

 as cheaply in Australia as in France or Italy, but there is 

 very good reason to believe that, favoured as we are by the 

 climate and cheap land, we may be in a position to undersell 

 any country in Europe." 



Trinity House, Colchester, 

 December 12th, 1870. 



