214 REPORT OF THE COMillSSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



SILK CULTURE. 



Since our last annual report was submitted the work of the Division 

 in encouraging and developing silk culture has been continued with 

 the additional clerical force which the appropriation in favor of ihe in- 

 dustry made it possible to employ. Three hundred ounces of silk-worm 

 eggs were purchased in France and received in "SVashington m December 

 of 1884. During the first three months of the present year, these eggs 

 were distributed among eight hundred and fifty applicants, inliabiting 

 almost every State in the Union. By far the largest number of appli- 

 cations came from Illinois, while Kansas, Louisiana, and Ohio testified 

 strongly to the interest felt in the industry. Eggs were distributed in 

 packages of one-twentieth of an ounce, one-tenth of an ounce, and larger 

 quantities, the apportionment being made with due consideration of the 

 experience of the applicant and the silk- worm food accessible. Through 

 ignorance of the art of raising silk- worms, many have asked for much 

 larger quantities of eggs than they could possibly raise in their inex- 

 perience. For these we have been obliged to judge in what may have 

 seemed an ai-bitrary luanuer, and they have always received but a small 

 quantity. This, while not enough to insure profit, has been quite suffi- 

 cient to enable the raisers to actjuire some of that experience without 

 which no industry can be successfully carried on. 



DISTEIEUTION OF MUL33EE,RY TREES. 



The Division has co-operated with the superintendent of gardens and 

 grounds in thedistiihution of some eight thousand mulberry trees to per- 

 sons interested in nIUc culture. We arc not in favor of an indiscriminate 

 distribution of food-plants, for various reasons. Chief among these is 

 the laet that neither the Osage Orange nor the IMulberry can be denuded 

 of their leaves without injury until the plant has reached at least its 

 fourth year. This lapse of time is discouraging to silk-raisers, and while 

 waiting for their trees to acquire the requisite size they lose their in- 

 terest in the industry or become discouiaged. It has been urged by 

 nurserymen that one of the duties of the l)ei)ariinent in fostering silk 

 culture Avas to encourage the setting outof larg<^ mulberry plantations, 

 so that, as the interest in the work grov/s, silk-raisers may find an 

 abundance of food of easy access. But the great fiurry of 1838 was 

 rather caused by nurserymen than by silk cuUurists, and the furor in 

 planting the multicaulis, ritaling as it did the tulip craze of Holland, 

 led to the ruin of many rich men. Altliough such an event could hardly 

 be looked for again, experience teaches that we must take great care 

 not to allow ourselves to be led into a false policy by interested parties. 

 The mulberry planting of that period, as well a.s at prior and subse- 

 quent times,* has left large numbers of trees scattered over the country, 

 which will enable silk-raisers to makv' the experiments necessary to 

 assure themselves if their interest in the industry is to be lasting o3- 

 whether it is to die out after the first season. 



We have often called attention to the use of the Osage Orange as a 

 food-plant, and in tlie section where it is so largely used for hedging it 

 is now the common material used in feeding silk-worms. This section 

 has its center in the State of Illinois, where the supply appears to be 

 practically unlimited, and it stretches on the cast to Central Ohio and 

 on tlie west into the eastern counties of Nebraska and Kansas, where 

 it is becoming more plentiful as the country becomes more thickly set- 



