38 



the ground and feed them out or cut off every year. 

 But whether this method will produce as much or more 

 Silk, than to omit picking the leaves for seven years, I 

 have not obtained information sufficient to decide. 



I further remark, that the education of youth is of the 

 utmost importance to the public. May I be permitted to 

 address the inhabitants of every school District, that they 

 would seriously and without delay, consider the importance 

 of connecting the silk business with summer schools, by 

 procuring two or three acres of suitable land near each 

 school house, and have them well covered with mulberry 

 trees and fenced with a mulberry hedge, with sheds near 

 the school house, for feeding the worms and reeling the 

 silk ; and having a suitable mistress and tvventyfour schol- 

 ars and over, to be employed in gathering leaves and 

 feeding worms at times not interfering with regular school 

 hours, for the term of four months, the silk worms to be 

 hatched in succession, once in eight or ten days, and the 

 produce of silk will be more than enough to pay the wages 

 and board of the mistress at $20 per month, and the 

 board of the scholars at $1 per week during that time. 

 This can be proved by actual experiment and arithmetical 

 demonstration, if we may believe the testimony of all 

 the silk growers and authors on the silk business. 



A shed may be erected near a school house of the 

 following dimensions, viz. 20 feet long and .16 wide, with 

 nine feet posts boarded with square edged boards, the 

 roof shingled, but no floor, two small windows, one at 

 each end ; two frames made like ladders for four tier of 

 shelves, fifteen feet long and four and a half wide, the 

 lower ends of the ladders to be two and a half feet above 



