236 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
are of the French variety, which he says will produce the strongest and 
best silk. The Japanese silk-worms do not succeed well, and are not 
worth so much by one-third as the French. He sells his cocoons in 
European markets, to which they may be transported with perfect 
safety. 
The worms when first hatched are fed upon the tenderest leaves, the 
tip ends of the growing side-shoots being used for this purpose. When 
the worms become older and stronger, larger leaves are used, and so on 
tili they are full-grown, when they require the strongest food. They 
are fed upon shelves, on which the leaves are strewn in the form of a ring 
or wreath about a footin diameter. This method is found to be the most 
favorable for ventilation and cleanliness. 
Mr. Jesse Williams, whose farm is seven miles from Watsonville, in 
Santa Cruz County, which joins Santa Clara County, has three acres of 
land planted with imulber ry trees of the multicaulis variety, which he re- 
gards as the best for feeding silk-worms when the production of eggs is 
more of an object than thatof silk. His trees are three years old, and he 
prunes them back, so as to give them a bushy form, with numerous small 
shoots and limbs. He says that he can get more leaves and of better 
quality by this method of training. He is hatching this season 160,000 
worms from four ounces of eggs. The trees on the three acres will atford 
an ample supply for feeding them. He has a separate building for a 
breeding-room, to which plenty of air can be admitted, although a strong 
draught is not allowed to blow upon the worms. He expects to pro- 
duce 500 ounces of eggs this year, which will be sufficient te hatch 
20,000,000 of worms. It is his intention also to plant this year 5,000 
more trees, and to build a cocoonery which will be of sufficient size to 
accommodate 2,000,000 worms. 
The reports of the surveyor general of California exhibit a production 
of 8,200 pounds of cocoons in 1868, against 3,043 pounds in 1867. The 
number of mulberry trees reported in 1868 was 374,125, against 356,053 
in 1867. 
Mr. J. N. Hoag, of Yolo, in the season of 1869, from fifty to sixty acres 
of land, containing 300,000 trees, fed 1,500,000 Worms. 
Mr. H. Muller, of Nevada County, from 105,000 trees fed 50,000 worms. 
He states that his best eggs are those exposed all winter on his trees, at 
an elevation of 1,800 feet above the level of the sea. 
Mr. Albert Brewster, a sericulturist of Los Angeles, is feeding his 
worms with branches this year, thus saving the labor of pulling the leaves. 
He says this season has been more favorable than the last. The worms 
have been longer in maturing than if the weather had been warmer, but 
they could not be more healthy. About 60,000 of his worms had com- 
menced to spin their cocoons; the remainder, about 200,000, were yet 
small, being more recently hatched. The winter which followed the 
prosperous silk season of 1868, in California, was open and pleasant; 
but the following spring was late, cold, and unfavorable to a healthy 
growth of the mulberry leaf. The electric condition of the atmosphere 
was unusually disturbed; and, until late in June, showers were almost 
uniformly followed by cold and disagreeable weather. 
‘The effects of an exceptional season were plainly visible in the foliage 
of the peach, and the irregular growth and deficient flavor of its fruit, 
and in an unevenness of erowth in the hop fields, such as had never be. 
fore been observed in the State. Apiarists experienced an unaccus- 
tomed loss of bees, and a deficiency in proportional product and in the 
quality of honey; and a significant fact to naturalists was the scarcity 
of buttertlies, usually so abundant at certain seasons. These peculiari- 
