II. Adlanthiculture; or, the Prospect of a new English 
Industry. By ALexaAnpeR Wauuace, M.D. Oxon., 
M.R.C.P. Lond. 
“No amount of failure can destroy the effect of a single instance of suc- 
cess: for where one experiment has succeeded, there is every reason to believe 
that further investigation must lead to the discovery of the elements which 
will render success certain.’’* (Rep. Acclim. Soc. 1862.) 
Axout the year 550, a.p., two monks, having procured in India 
the eggs of the silkworm moth (Bombyx Mori), concealed them 
in hollow canes and hastened to Constantinople ;{ there this new 
race speedily multiplied, and Sericiculture (or the cultivation of 
silk-producing insects) spreading thence into Sicily, Italy, France, 
&c., became in Central and Southern Europe an extensive and 
staple industry, vieing in importance with Viticulture and even 
with Agricuiture itself. 
In the 14th and 15th centuries, and especially in the early 
part of the 17th, during the reign of James I., many efforts 
were made to introduce this industry into England, but our 
climate proved too variable and cold, particularly in the spring 
months, for the well-doing either of the tree or of the insect ; 
for a temperature of 40° F. proves fatal to the young caterpillar 
of B. Mori, which emerges from the egg in the month of May, 
a time when in this country there are few or no leaves on the 
mulberry tree for its sustenance; hence all efforts to cultivate 
B. Mori for the sake of its silken produce have in England 
been precarious and unsuccessful. But European Sericiculture, 
dependent for the last thirteen centuries on the mulberry tree and 
on the three or four varieties of the Bombyx Morit which feed on the 
leaves of that tree, presents to a far-seeing eye at the present time 
an entirely novel prospect. Within the last few years new species 
of silk-producing Bombyces have been introduced into Europe, 
feeding on a variety of food plants, some of which are indigenous, 
* [To the Memoir endorsed with the above Motto was awarded a Prize 
offered by the Council of the Society for 1865, for an Essay on Economic 
Evtomology.—Sec. Ent. Soc.] 
{ Kirby & Spence, Introd. Entom. i. 333 (ed. 2). 
{ See Captain Hutton’s paper on Silkworms, Trans. Ent. Soc., 3rd series, 
i, 299. 
VOL. V. THIRD SERIES, PART II, —-APRIL, 1866. o 
