ORDER IV. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 143 



amounts to four millions eight hundred thousand dollars. 

 Mr. Castellas presented me with several bundles of the silk 

 which he manufactured, and it was pronounced far superior 

 in quality to the French or Italian silk by every connoisseur 

 to whom I showed it afterward in my travels through Ger 

 many and France. 



That enterprising and excellent man died two years after 

 I left the Crimea, and while I was in St. Domingo, and 

 my deep grief at his untimely departure and my loss were 

 only assuaged by the sweet hope of once more meeting him 

 beyond the grave. He has left this world forever, and his 

 grand and extensive establishments have probably perished 

 from neglect; for a country where 1,200,000 idle soldiers 

 rule the inhabitants with a rod of iron, and suck their life- 

 blood, can not well or long succeed in such enterprises. 



It seems to me a matter of regret, and a great deficiency 

 in our views of political economy, that the people of the 

 United States of America have not been more persevering 

 and successful in raising their own silk, for the importation 

 of which they pay so many millions of dollars annually. 

 It is true that a few individuals here and there are occu 

 pied in this lucrative branch of industry ; and I was happy 

 to be able to purchase some fine silk handkerchiefs at 

 Ixapp s Economy, eighteen miles below Pittsburgh, on the 

 Ohio, which were manufactured there out of silk of their 

 own raising. But this is like a drop of water to the vast 

 ocean, in a country of so immense an area, and of a popula 

 tion that will soon reach fifty millions. It is not a vision 

 ary project, or a Morns Multicaulis speculation, that I 

 would encourage ; but if our government would protect this 

 branch of industry by a suitable tariff, the cultivation of 

 silk-worms and the manufacture of silk could be made a 

 profitable business. Families in the Middle States of the 

 Union might thus employ many old and infirm men and 

 women, as well as children when not in school ; and in the 



