20 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
reeling, the industry will be fairly established, and private capital will 
not be wanting to seek profitable investment therein. 
Mr. John Ryle, of Paterson, N. J., a well-known authority on this 
subject, writes me under recent date as follows: 
The right way is to start every family to raise a few cocoons, and to prepare the 
way to provide a market for them, and so induce our people to increase the quantity 
raised, until there is enough to employ regular filatures, and professional reelers, to 
produce silk for our own factories. This can only be the work of time, but there is no 
other way to accomplish this result. 
There can be no question as to the adaptation of the larger part of 
our country to silk-culture, or of our ability to grow the worms success- 
fully. Experience has established these two facts, as it has the superior 
quality of American-grown silk. It is not so necessary to urge the cul- 
tivation of the mulberry as it is to establish first a market for the cocoons. 
In some parts of the South the best of white mulberries are already 
grown in large orchards, for the sake of the fruit, which is deemed most 
valuable food for hogs, and in case the mulberry-trees already grown 
should at any time be cut off by mildew and disease, as they were at 
the close of the multicaulis fever in 1839 and 1840, we have the advan- 
tage over Enrope and other countries in being able to fall back upon 
the Maclura, which proves, when judiciously fed, to be as good as mul- 
berry. 
Pursuant to an appropriation made by the last Congress for the pur- 
pose, I have carried on a special investigation of the insects injurious to 
the cotton-plant, more particularly the cotton-worm (Aletia Argillacea). 
The investigation so far (notwithstanding the lateness of the season 
when the work was commenced, and the unfavorable condition of the 
Lower Mississippi Valley, for such an inquiry the present year) has been 
fruitful beyond expectation. It is my desire and intention to make the 
investigation thorough and exhaustive. To accomplish this and to do 
full justice to the subject will require continuous work to the end of 
the next cotton-season, as we cannot arrive at complete knowledge on 
the many questions that present themselves, whether regarding the 
habits of the insect, or as to the best means of preventing its injuries, 
without pursuing systematic investigations through every season of the 
year. I will therefore hope and expect a renewal of the special appro- 
priation for this purpose to enable the department to satisfactorily com- 
plete the work. When wereflect on the immense losses the cotton- 
grower has sustained during the best part of a century from the ravages 
of the cotton-worm and other insects, it is surprising that no systematic 
investigation had before been made by the government; and now that 
the investigation has been commenced, it is very desirable that it be 
completed in a thorough manner. 
STATISTICAL DIVISION. 
This division has been employed during the past year, as usual— 
Tn collecting the statistics of farm products and animals through the 
agency of some 4,000 correspondents; 
