RESOURCES OF AMERICA, SILK, ETC. 419 



mate being favorable, both authorities concur in stating, that the 

 planting ot the mulberry trees and the raising of silk- worms, are, in 

 this day, the most profitable of all agricultural pursuits. 



The mulberry tree, says Dr. Ure, is valued in Provence at from 

 Gd. to lOd. sterling each, (or 12 to 21 cents,) or, this being its cost at 

 the age of four years, at which time they are transplanted ; they 

 may be stripped of their leaves in the fifth and sixth years, or three 

 years from the time of grafting, and the seventh year it yields 

 leaves worth one shilling sterling, or twenty-two cents ; and they 

 go on increasing for twenty or thirty years, when the leaves bring 

 thirty shillings, or $7,20. Large trees in the south of France will 

 yield three hundred pounds, or, according to Dr. Ure, a tree will 

 yield from one hundred to three hundred pounds, according to its 

 magnitude and mode of cultivation. 



The cost of cultivation is one franc (eighteen and a half cents) 

 per hundred pounds. The average cost of leaves, in good years, 

 is three francs, or fifty-five cents per hundred pounds on the trees, 

 in that country. 



The silk husbandry in France is completed in six weeks from the 

 first of May ; thus affording the most rapid of all agricultural re- 

 turns, and requiring only a small advance of capital for the purchase 

 of the leaves. 



Cocoons are found to lose seven and a half per cent, in weight, in 

 the first ten days, by the perspiration of the chrysalides. The pro- 

 portion between the weight of silk which can be reeled, and that of 

 the coarse floss which can only be spun, is found to be in the aver- 

 age proportion of nineteen to one in perfect cocoons. But this does 

 not include the outer floss, of a loose, furzy texture, which can 

 never be reeled. 



1,000 ounces of perfect cocoons have been found to produce 15<) 

 ounces of pure cocoon. Thus every perfect ball, as soon as com- 

 pleted, contains more than one seventh part of pure cocoon ; but 

 this includes the floss and the pellicles. The length of the filament 

 is usually from 500 to 1,200 feet. Count Dandolo states that it sel- 

 dom exceeds 1,875 feet. 



Count Dandolo has stated, that twenty-one pounds of leaves, with 

 economy in feeding, will produce one and a half pounds of cocoons. 

 Again he has stated that, in Dalmatia, he has procured one and a 

 half pounds of cocoons from fifteen pounds of leaves. 



In 1814, which was considered a season extremely unfavorable 

 for silk-worms, Count Dandolo obtained fifteen ounces of very fine 

 silk from seven and a half pounds of cocoons; and from the same 

 weight of refuse cocoons he obtained thirteen ounces. These ex- 

 traordinary cases are stated only to show the result of good and 

 right management. 



"At Cevonnes, where the finest silk is produced, and where the 

 cocoon is cast out, when seven eighth parts are reeled, thirteen 

 pounds of cocoons, of a thread of four or five cocoons, are required 

 for a pound of the purest silk in the world. 



The silk of Cevennes, in France, is probably the finest in the 

 world. I have particularly stated the mode in which it is reeled, 

 for to this cause, in a measure, it owes its celebrity. There is in- 

 deed one kind which is sold at Lyons for from $4,42 to $4,64 the 

 English pound ; but there U a kind still finer, which briugs $9,60 

 a pound. 



