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twenty persons were engaged in the business last year, more than five hundred 
have commenced operations the present season, and expresses the opinion that 
there will be ten times the number next year. He writes: “ My worms are 
doing finely this year. In about two weeks they will begin to make their 
cocoons. his year again, I have not seen one sick worm—a confirmation of 
my opinion that the disease is not in the worm, but in the food. My observa- 
tions here have convinced me of that fact. It is well known that where the 
mulberry tree is growing in the shade the leaves absorb the oxygen of the at- 
mosphere, and this is what creates disease in other countries. Here, at the time 
of feeding, we have constant sunshine from morning till night, and consequently 
our leaves are always in good condition for the worms. ‘This is the secret of 
the superiority of California over other countries for the culture of silk, * . * 
Immense quantities of silk may be produced in this State; we have mil- 
lions of acres of the best mulberry soil, and the climate is the best in the world 
for the worms.” 
THE BOUGHTON WHEAT. 
Duplin county, N. C—Last fall I received from the department a small bag 
of ‘Tappahannock or early Boughton wheat. This wheat (about one quart) I 
sowed in drills, eighteen inches apart, on the 15th of October. The land was 
a stiff, sandy loam, as fertile as land can well be made here. Immediately after 
the wheat came up the grasshoppers destroyed about one-fourth of it. In Feb-- 
ruary I gave the wheat a top dressing of guano and phosphate of lime, mixed 
at the rate of two hundred pounds to the acre. In April the rabbits destroyed 
nearly one-fourth of the remainder. The wheat headed out the last week in 
April, and in May took the rust on the blades, injuring it to some extent. On 
the 10th of June I harvested the crop, obtaining a yield of three bushels and 
one peck of wheat from the one quart of seed—one hundred and twenty fold— 
an enormous yield for this section. The wheat grew, on an average, five feet 
in height, and ripened ten days earlier than our fall wheat. J think in an 
earlier spring it would ripen twenty days in advance of our common wheat, and 
ordinarily it would ripen early enough to escape the red rust, which is the great- 
est drawback we have to contend with in wheat-raising. 
Smith county, Tenn —I received from the department last fall two pounds of 
early Boughton or ‘Tappahannock wheat, which was sowed on the 27th day of 
September, on one twenty-fourth part of an acre. It was cut on the 12th of 
June and threshed out eighty pounds of very fine wheat. Just as it was ripen- 
ing the guinea chickens destroyed at least ten pounds of it. After all the loss, 
it will be seen that I saved at the rate of forty bushels to the bushel sowed, or 
thirty-five and a half bushels to the acre—more than double the best yield of 
ordinary wheat in this section. I shall sow the product this fall and test it on 
a larger scale. 
Another correspondent, writing from De Kalb county, Alabama, received a 
similar package of the same wheat. He sowed it on land much worn, with a 
soil about three inches dark loam, and stiff clay sub-soil, which had been culti- 
vated in corn the preceding year, ‘Che wheat was sowed on a square of twenty 
feet, fertilized with four loads of stable manure ploughed under. Harvested on 
the 18th of June, and on the 3d of July threshed out two and a half bushels 
(weighing one hundred and fifty-seven pounds) of the finest wheat ever seen 
in this neighborhood. I shall sow the whole in the fall, and if it yields half as 
well another year it will be a great addition to our crops. 
HYBRIDIZING GRAPES 
Chester county, S. C—I have been for some years engaged in hybridizing 
the grape, and after many trials have succeeded in producing a hybrid Scupper- 
