3 
and its importation free of duty is as much an encouragement to for- 
eign manufacturers and an impediment to home industry as the re- 
moval of the duty would be on the woven goods. The aid that Congress, 
through this Department, should, in my judgment, give to sill-reeling, 
and thereby to silk-production, may be supplied by private and benev- 
olent means. 
* * * * * * * 
The obstacles which I have set forth are none of them permanent or 
insuperable, while we have some advantages not possessed by other 
countries. One of infinite importauce is the inexhaustible supply of 
Osage Orange (Maclura aurantiaca) which our thousands of miles of 
hedges furnish ; another is the greater average intelligence and inge- 
nuity of our people, who will not be content to tread merely in the ways 
of the Old World, but will be quick to improve on their methods ; still 
another may be found in the more spacious and commodious nature of 
the barns and outhouses of our average farmers. Every year’s experi- 
ence with the Maclura confirms all that I have said of its value as silk- 
worm food. Silk which I have had reeled from a race of worms fed on 
it, now for eleven consecutive years, is of the very best quality, while 
the tests made at the recent silk fair at Philadelphia showed that in 
some instances a less weight of cocoons spun by Maclura-fed worms 
was required for a pound of reeled silk than of cocoons from mulberry- 
fed worms. 
Ge Vie its 
WASHINGTON, D. C., February 20, 1882. 
