PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 231 



engage to furnish a quantity at $3 per bushel. She informed me 

 the amount she could make annually by silk culture, but I do not 

 remember ; yet, if I mistake not, she said by employing a girl for 

 domestic labor for one month, they, with the little ones, in that 

 time could make half as much as the farm produced, with ten 

 times the outlay of labor and money. After my return to the 

 north, in November, 1851, in a tour up the Naugatuck valley of 

 Connecticut, at Humphriesville, I visited a silk manufactory, to 

 fulfill my pledge to my hostess, and upon inquiry learned that 

 they gave |3 per bushel for cocoons ; but the hazard of transpor- 

 tation at that time, together with the expense, would not Avarrant 

 me in recommending to her silk culture at so great a distance 

 from market. 



The gentleman in charge invited me to go through the factory 

 and examine the machinery, and some of the processes of silk 

 manufacture, and I was never more surprised and delighted in 

 any institution of my country than in that. I there saw one of 

 the most beautiful specimens of silk manufacture that I have ever 

 met with, either domestic or foreign, and the weaving being per- 

 formed by a female. It was a fancy piece — a table cover, if I 

 mistake not, and I do not remember ever to have seen a more 

 perfectly beautiful piece of fabric during my life, before or since. 

 The colors were unexceptionable, and were so blended in the 

 figures as to fill the e^^e to completeness ; and I wai^ led to exclaim, 

 Great God ! when will the time come when the industry and skill 

 of the humble people of these United States will be delivered from 

 the deadly influences of heartless, detnagogical politicians, and the 

 damning influence of slavery — that moral Upas, whose roots take 

 hold on hell, and has paralyzed the industry of our country, and 

 robbed it, directly and indirectly, of thousands of millions of dol- 

 lars within the last half century. And as much, sir, as I love my 

 country, and yearn for the full development of its entire natural 

 resources, together with that of its mental and spiritual genius 

 and industy, still I cannot, and should regret to have this Club, 

 recommend the cultivation of silk, to any considerable extent, 

 until the people are disenthralled from the shackles of political 

 mountebanks and costermongers, and educated in the science and 

 genius of the God-given nobility of a government whose aim and 

 purpose is the prosperity and the happiness of the people; the 

 protection of the weak against the strong ; the innocent against 

 the vicious ; the producing against the consuming and accumu- 



