FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



BENEFICIAL INSECTS. 



S I L K ^V O R M S . 



'^ Si Patrice titilis cotnpensatns est labor." 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Silk is at once the strongest and most tenacious of fibres, and makes 

 the most beautiful, durable and valuable of tissues. What gold is to metals, 

 or the diamond to precious stones, that silk is to all other textile fibers. 



Upwards of 35 years ago speculators succeeded in creating an immense 

 furore throughout this country on the subject of silk-culture. It is not my 

 purpose to repeat the history of the silk excitement, which by the name of 

 the Iforus muliicaidis fever stands out prominently as an integral j^art of the 

 history of our Eepublic. Inflated to its utmost the bubble soon burst, and 

 Avith its collapse came a reaction which has ever since prejudiced Americans 

 against an industry which is justly considered one of the very richest with 

 many nations of the earth. As a people we are too apt to go to extremes, 

 and the historj- of the White Willow hedge fever in the West, some ten 

 years ago, and of other similar speculations which have for a while excited 

 the jicople's mind, is present to tell us that the Morns nudticaulis fever does 

 not stand alone as an evidence of the fact. 



Strong as was the reaction and the prejudice. against silk-culture, j'Ct 

 during the last few years the subject has received increasing attention, and 

 Commissioner Capron refers hopefully to it in his last report from the De- 

 partment of Agriculture. * It has been shown that some races of the worm 

 will feed and flourish on Osage orange, and that some parts of this great 

 countr}' are, so far as climate is concerned, eminently adapted to the rear- 

 ing of this precious insect, whose industry increases that of man. Indeed 

 so much of an exaggerated nature has been said and written on the subject, 

 since the close of the Raballion, and more particularly in California, that 

 there is some danger of a repetition of the history of 35 years ago. 



It has occurred to me that an accurate account of the Mulberry Silk- 

 worm, and of such other introduced or indigenous species as seem to war- 

 rant it, may, in great measure, prevent any such unfortunate recurrence, 

 and really prove interesting and valuable to the people of Missouri as not 

 only revealing the habits of some of the most splendid moths which enrich 



*1S70, p. 8. 



