424 



of means to euds; ami by tlie aid of improved processes for defecating the raw juice, 

 now in very successful operation in Europe, Cliatsworth may ultimately redeem its 

 failure, and establish a decided success. Two beet-sugar establishments go into opera- 

 tion during the present autumn in California, where the promise of rich returns is 

 cheering; and the experiment has been successfully demonstrated in the high latitude 

 of Northern Wisconsin. 



Little time will elapse ere the sugar consumption will be equivalent to $200,000,000 

 per annum ; and it is my belief that the West will then produce no small share of the 

 required quautity upon her own soil. It will then be recognized as a leading interest 

 in agriculture, as it is now upon the continent of Europe; and cattle-feeding will then 

 thrive as it never has before, and wheat and other products, as part of a judicious 

 rotation, will attest the increasing fertility of our prairie soils, and attend the develop- 

 ment of a better system of scientific agriculture. 



The most prosperous and productive agricultural sections of Europe derive their 

 greatest advantages from beet sugar. If we do not profit by their example, the reason 

 will be found in the greater results obtained in the culture of the cane. Let ua solve 

 this problem of abundant sugar production speedily, and save to the nation the millions 

 needlessly s^ient abroad. 



SILK PRODUCTION. 



It is not strange, in the beginning of our career of industrial development, that the 

 little silk-worm has been neglected as a source of employment and wealth, and the 

 national appreciation of Bombi/x mori may have been modified by a remembrance of the 

 Moras muldcaulis. It would be creditable and profitable to us, as a nation, could we 

 outgrow the tendency to mania in the initiation of a new rural pursuit, and thus avoid 

 its disastrous abandonment and deep-seated prejudice, which long prevent its success- 

 ful introduction. The signs of the present time indicate, for the rearing of silk-worms, 

 an assured success, and a permanency of decided promise. As labor multiplies, an 

 interest like this, capable of almost indefinite extension in manufiicture, acquires vastly 

 increased importance. Already four of the seven branches of silk production can com- 

 pete with foreign nations, viz: "Throwing" of the silk or preparation of the threads, 

 the dyeing of silk, the regeneration and spinning of silk waste, and the automatic 

 weaving of i>lain stuti's. In silk-weaving England uoav emploj^s 200,000 persons, and 

 the utilization o{ silk ivaste in France requires iiO,000 workmen, and realizes $20,000,000. 

 We believe we can yet compete with outsiders in rearing the worms, reeling the 

 cocoons, and weaving figured goods. California already produces millions of cocoons, 

 in a climate in which the worms are thus fiir as healthy as any in the world; and the 

 Eastern and Soiithern States are beginning to embark in the business. The sale of eggs 

 for exportation at $4 to $10 per ounce, has been temptingly remunerative since the 

 prevalence of the silk-worm disease in Europe, which inllicts an annual loss upon France 

 alone, according to M. Thiers in a speech in the Corps Legislatif, of $20,000,000 annually. 

 In eighty years, the annual value of the silk manufacture of France has advanced fi'om 

 $.5,000,000 to $150,000,000. 



Who will venture to estimate the value of silk goods in the United States thirty 

 years hence, manufactured from American cocoons? Thousands of individuals (in 

 suitable climates) incapacitated for the severe labors of agriculture, can compete suc- 

 cessfully for the supply of the raw material. 



It may be an interesting fact to the dwellers in these prairies, begirt with osage 

 orange hedges, that the naturalist of the Department of Agriculture has readily 

 obtained cocoous of beautiful silk, from worms fed exclusively upon. the Maclura 

 aurantiaca ; this experiment has been confirmed by a late communication received at 

 the Department, from a reliable correspondent, who states that he has, the past season, 

 fed upwards of ten thousand worms, with i)erfect success, upon the osage orange alone. 



SOIL IMPROVEMENT. 



Your soil is wonderfully fertile. You may be disposed to consider it inexhaustible. 

 It is an injurious, if not a fatal error. The coffers of the most opulent treasury, con- 

 stantly drawn upon, will eventually become empty. Statistics of production attest 

 that repeated crops of wheat, on your best lands, show rapid deterioration ; every 

 crop taken from the soil, with no return, reduces the capacity of the farm for produc- 

 tion in arithmetical ratio, and its ca])acity for profit in geometrical ratio. Such a course 

 may give you for a time a little more "ready money," but you ai'e certainly robbing 

 your heirs; it is extremely easy to deplete your best soils; it is doubly difficult to 

 reuovate them; how difficult, you can only realize after trial. I have had a full ex- 

 perience of this in Maryland, having brought the value of a thousand acres, after years 

 of labor and toil, from $10 up to $60 per acre and repaid its cost. The difference between 

 its original and improved yield in that period, which represents the measure of loss 

 wrought by former mismanagement, would have been a fortune in itself. I can point 

 out farms in Maryland, thirty years ago reduced to barrenness and the meager viilue 



