CAUSE OF THE FAILURES 159 



crops, the opening of trade directly with China and 

 Japan, the cheaper labor of France and Italy, all these 

 factors have made the business precarious and unprofit- 

 able. "This branch of industry," writes the botanist- 

 traveler, Michaux, early in this century, "is adapted 

 only to a populous country, where there are hands not 

 required for the cultivation of the earth that may be 

 employed in manufactures so as to afford their products 

 at moderate prices. In the United States this period is 

 still remote." Yet the persistent experiments to grow 

 silk have been productive of good results, aside from 

 teaching us what the limitations of our country are. 

 A very large silk -manufacturing industry has arisen, 

 the fabrics being made from imported raw silks. The 

 net annual value of the finished goods of American 

 manufacture is about seventy million dollars, and the 

 annual imports of raw silks reach about six million 

 pounds. 



But there is another curious development of all 

 this early experiment, the history and evolution of 

 which had never been traced until the present writer 

 made the attempt in an experiment station bulletin a 

 few years ago.* This second outcome is the evolution 

 of the mulberry itself, and this is the theme which 

 forms the proper subject and conclusion of all this dis- 

 cussion of American silk -growing. Historians have 

 followed the course of the development of the silk 

 industry, but have neglected the subsequent course of 

 the mulberry, upon which all the efforts at silk produc- 

 tion have rested. The reasons for this oversight are 

 the comparative unimportance of the mulberry for any 



Mulberries, Bull. 46, Cornell Exp. Sta. (Mot-ember, 1892). 



