284 On the Growth of Silh 



of intelligence foreign and domestic, relating to improvemQnts and 

 success in the culture of silk ; its value ; comparative price j the 

 necessary machinery 3 the modes of manufacture; the demands and 

 all those movements in the market which are necessary to be noticed. 



1. In the Culturist No. 1. p- 116, we notice the narrative of the 

 experiments carried on during the spring of 1829, upon different par- 

 cels of silk-worms, some of which were conducted under the influ- 

 ence of electricity ; the comparative results of these experiments 

 are decisive in favor of the discovery not only with respect to the quan- 

 tity and quality of the silk, but to the saving of time, abridgment 

 of care and of artificial heat; in testimony of which we notice the letter 

 of J. Everett an eminent medical electrician, in New York, who ap- 

 plied the electric fluid, with the evolutions of which he is particular- 

 ly famihar, (vid. p. 67. Vol. 11.) 



2. This improvement promises good success; it has received as 

 we understand, the approbation of a Parisian savant, who has already 

 testified to the propriety and ingenuity of the application of electri- 

 city and to the great benefits to be derived from it in this important 

 branch of industry. We trust that the author will soon communi- . 

 cate to the public the views of his philosophical correspondent and • 

 bis own, on the natural means by which the elecirlc clement can be 

 still more conveniently fixed or accumulated than by mechanical ap- 

 paratus, especially in our climate which is declared to be the most 

 Electrical in the world : this agent is in the authors' view, all import- 

 ant to the silk-worm; since according to his observations, neither air 

 light or heat are directly Influential to the life and energy of the 

 insect. 



3. Another improvement is not unimportant to culturists, especially 

 when they undertake to obtain large crops of silk ; it is that of pro- 

 viding some durable and more convenient apparatus than bruslnvood ; 

 great quantities of which are required for the spinning of the sijk 

 caterpillars. Dr. P. candidly informs us that he was led merely by 

 chance to his present method, by the absolute want of brushwood at 

 the most critical moment for the preservation of his brood and fine 

 silk balls. The set of hurdles which he procured for litters were nice- 

 ly made of split rattan of about 3 ft. by 4 ; whicli being coupled 

 together one higher than the other, and placed vertically and trans- 

 versely on the edge of fitters, offered to the wandering and mounting 

 caterpillar the most convenient space at all points for an equilateral 

 triangle, to which during the whole sixth age, the instinctive insect 



