146 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



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 hav- 

 ing a suitable mistress and twenty four scholars 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 the ground, and two 

 and a half feet between them ; at one end of the shed 

 four more shelves the height of the others, thirteen feet 

 long, one foot and eight inches wide ; these twelve 

 shelves will serve for one hundred thousand worms, 

 and will consume about twenty five hundred pounds of 

 leaves previous to their spinning cocoons, after each 

 hatching, and produce two hundred and eight pounds 

 of cocoons and make twenty six pounds of reeled silk, 

 according to Messrs. Homergue's and Cobb's calcula- 

 tions ; and by hatching the worms in succession for 



