130 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



In this abounding new country, all the rural 

 scheme's which had proved to be visionary in England 

 could be expected to thrive. One of the most inflated 

 of all these instructions for the betterment of the 

 colony was a treatise by Samuel Hartlib, published in 

 1655, called "The Reformed Virginian Silk Worm." 

 The most remarkable part of this book is a letter 

 "wherein the Experiment of a vertuous Lady of this 

 Nation for the breeding of Silk-worms, is addressed 

 unto the Planters of Virginia."* This lady sets herself 

 before the reader in a most ambitious introduction : 

 "Hearken wel you beloved Planters, to what in these 

 few lines I shall declare unto you ; and is thus sent 

 you in Print, that all of you may communicate the 

 great and superlative good and benefit will be unto 

 every one of you : who so is wise, will ponder these 

 things, and give praise and glory to God, the Author 

 of all good Inventions, how Providence having brought 

 this to pass for all your exceeding great happiness and 

 increase of store of wealth, with so much ease, so little 

 labour, no cost unto you ; and in so short a time as 

 fourty daies, this wealth flowes in upon you. * * * 

 She hath I say this Spring found out (by the speciall 

 blessing of God upon her intentions) so rare, so speedy, 

 and so costless a way and means for the feeding of 

 Silkwormes ; by the triall and experiment she so luckily 

 made, to the admiration of all that have seen or heard 

 of it, as a thing scarce credible ; because not heretofore 

 thought of, nay, as it were, held impossible by such 



*Hartlib was a prominent man of his time, and made what is probably the 

 first definite plan for a school of agriculture. See a brief sketch of the man 

 and a summary of his "Essay for the Advancement of Husbandry-Learning," 

 1651, in Garden and Forest, vol. x., p. 168. 



