KEPOKT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 21 



intended to economize wax, increase the honey supply, and facilitate 

 manipulation. The experiments now being carried on have in view 

 rather the improvement of the bee itself, and there is every promise 

 that, by controlling reproduction and by other methods, the honey- 

 yielding power of the bee can be materially increased, and that bee 

 culture will thus receive an impetus analogous to that given to the 

 dairy interest by improving the milk and butter producing qualities 

 of the cow. 



SILK. 



I am happy to say that Congress at the last session met several of 

 the recommendations and suggestions in my first annual report, and 

 prominent among those departures which the Department has thus 

 been able to make during the year may be mentioned that of experi- 

 ments in reeling silk in this District from domestic-grown cocoons. 

 Experiments had been made for many years in this country in the 

 production of cocoons, and while the results were encouraging and 

 progressive, yet our people, not having the incentive of a market to 

 bring to the problem of successful cocoon raising, American genius 

 and adaptability cannot be said to have become first-class cocoon 

 raisers. Obviously, then, the step of wisdom, of economy, of pru- 

 dence, must be one looking toward a profit in the production of co- 

 coons, or, in other words, a market for them. There can be no doubt 

 of our ability to raise cocoons, and that, too, by the labor of women 

 and children, who might otherwise be unemployed. i 



Having, then, American-grown cocoons, what is their place in the 

 economies ? Will they furnish raw silk to be reeled in America in 

 an American way, and furnish a remunerative reward to American 

 labor? 



The Entomologist considered this in his last report, and clearly 

 showed that no decisive answer to this question could be reached until 

 a practical silk-reel had been thoroughly tested at some point where 

 the details of its work could be watched and directed by himself and 

 his assistants, and where the work could be carried on for at least two 

 years on strictly business principles. In accordance with this sug- 

 gestion circulars have been sent into every section, offering to pur- 

 chase cocoons, which, upon receipt, are appraised by experts at their 

 market value. The experimental and reeling stations at San Fran- 

 cisco, ISTew Orleans, and Philadelphia have been abandoned, and a 

 careful experiment is now being made with the Serrell automai^ reel 

 at this Department. The success already obtained is most gratifying. 

 This interesting experiment is enabling the Department to carefully 

 note the quality of cocoons grown in difi^erent sections and climates, 

 to examine the raw silk produced thereby, and to ascertain its market 

 value; to compare the relative merits of osage-orange and mulberry 

 fed worms;' and to determine various other questions of importance 



