480 



FARMERS' RSGrSTER 



[No. & 



with a solution of chloride of lime, and set saucprs 

 of it in various places. It will speedily cjre those 

 that are siciv, and prevent any further extension ol 

 the disease. 



This remedy for the tripes is also my own dis- 

 covery. It was pulilished in the American Farm- 

 er, and the Farmer was re<rularly received by sev- 

 eral ttiembers of the society of Agricultural 

 Science in Paris; noi vvithsiandinix which, many 

 months afier ifs pubiicaiion in the Farmer, a pa- 

 per was read before tliat society o'ivingthe delails 

 of the important discovery by a citizen of France, 

 that chloride of lime was a sure remedy for the 

 tripes. However, it matters little to the public 

 who is entitled to the credit of so im|)ortant a dis- 

 covery, so long as that public has the advaniaire 

 of it. But I would siiiiwest that there will be lit- 

 tle encouragement to lal)orers in (he ileids of scien- 

 tific discovery, if they are to derive milker inter- 

 est nor credit from the results. The public is so 

 prone to tbrgetjulness on this subject, that most 

 discoverers now-a-days resort to patents to enforce 

 their claims, and ii the public will not be volunta- 

 rily just, it seems no more than proper that some 

 such process should be adopted. 



In their anxiety for improvements, those who 

 enter upon the silk business are too apt to adopt 

 useless if not injurious innovation. There are 

 many parts of the French and Italian practice 

 that may well be improved, some of ivhich are 

 useless and some k\v ridiculously so. But we 

 must not inU?r tuence that their whole practice is 

 wrong, and that we are capable of substituting an 

 entire new one. Aaiong all our experimenters we 

 finil no one th.at tries the brush or twigs univer- 

 sally used by the French and Italians tor the 

 worms to climb and spin their cocoons on. We 

 are continually inventinij; new plans lor this part of 

 the work, such as building frames, &c. IBut it 

 seems to me that the simple brush that has an- 

 swered the purpose for hundreds of years in other 

 parts oi the world, might besalely adopted in this, 

 I have escaped this symptom of the mania so far 

 as only to propose the use of broom-corn brush, as 

 being more convenient and simple than the brush 

 of the French* It answers the purpose admira- 

 bly with me. 



Again, our people are endeavoring to make 

 themselves and the public believe that we can pro- 

 duce successive crops of silkworms in the same 

 season, so that the work of producing cocoons may 

 be extended through the whole summer ii>slead of 

 being confined to about six weeks in May and 

 June. If this could have been profitably done, 

 the French and Italians would have long since 

 found it out; but we are not left with the conjectu- 

 ral uncertainty of an if— It was fiiiiiy tried years 

 ago, and resulted, as any body but one gifted with 

 the sanguine mind of a new beginner rriight have 

 known, in an unprofitable expenditure of time and 

 labor. The eggs may be forced to hatch the same 

 season they are produced; but it is unnatural, and- 



The foul air proceeds from putrifyino; vegetable sub- 

 stances, such as stale leaves, &c. The first sympton 

 shows itself in the worms ceasing to eat, throwing 

 their heads back, aad becoming of a black color. 

 Thpy soon turn quite black and die in an hour or two, 

 and mortify in another hour, when they smell very 

 badly. The disease will spread over the largest estab- 

 lishment in 24 hours, if not suppressed by the free 

 use of chloride of hme. 



they iiatch so irregularly that a profitable result 

 cannot be obtained.* 



I see by the newspapers that one of our new' 

 beginners has discovered and taken under his care 

 a new species of silkworm, an American silkworm 

 — whose cocoon is some eight or ten times as 

 heavy as 1 hat of the common — and from which 

 he exp.ects to produce wonderful results. Many 

 years since niany of these American silkworms 

 were sent to nie irom the south and the north — 

 (rom the east and the we?t; and I was then, as he 

 is now, elated at the idea of' introducing this new 

 and valuable improvement in the silk business; 

 but the 'worms would not iked kindly, the moths 

 flew away as soon as thjey escaped the cocoons, 

 and the cocoons could not be reeled. Worse than 

 that, even when reeled the silk was coarse and 

 harsh. Nothing that I could think of would dis- 

 solv;ie the gum of tlie cocoons, even with twenty- 

 four hours ?oaki.ng. Of course I let the moths fly 

 away. There are several varieties of worms that 

 make cocoons in tliih country, but it does not fol- 

 low that the fibre of those cocoons is as valuable 

 as that of tiie true silk worm. 



The best and simplest hurdle for the accommo- 

 dation of silkworms is that suggested in my trea- 

 tise published in 1830 in the American Farrner, 

 and in pamphlet form, apd which I have always 

 used when I had worms. It is made as follows — 

 a frame 5 or 6 feet long and 3 wide, made of plank 

 2 inch-^s wide and 1^- thick; like the outside of a 

 window-sash; make holes through both side and 

 end pieces with a brad awl about three-eiiihths of 

 an inch apart; pass'str-ong twine through the holes 

 lengih wise and then crosswise, and thus Ibrm a net 

 work bottom for the hurdle-. This will allow the 

 dung of file worms to fidl through upon a similar 

 frame with a paper bottom that should be placed 

 under it. It saves a good deal of labor in cleaning 

 off the litter, and permits air to pass up among the 

 worms and leaves. 



I perceive that this hurdje is also claimed by our 

 ingenious countrymen at the east, as of their in- 

 vention. Pity that their ingenuousness did not 

 equal their ingenuity. 



It is a common error to suppose that the young 

 worms require young and tender leaves to feed on. 

 They, on the contrary, eat the most mature leaf 

 with as much greediness when a day old as they 

 do when full grown. The French recommend 

 cutting the leaves into small pieces, and have a 

 knil(3 lor this pupose; this practice I Ibund injudi- 

 cious, as the worms press upon the mass and make 

 as it were a carpet of it, and much leaf is lost. I 

 preler laying on the leaves whole— the worms will 

 speedily cut them up for themselves. This prac- 

 tice is only equalled by the French recommenda- 

 tion, to separate the male and female moths after 

 having been together six hours in the act of cop- 

 ulation. Following their directioiiSj for in those 

 times I had no other guide than the French books, 



* Since, the above was written t have learned that 

 some gentlemen in New Jersey are enabled to pro- 

 long the-beason of feeding worms, by keeping the eggs 

 in an ice house, and biinging out portions as they 

 want them through the summer. If put into an ice 

 house immediately after they are produced, and kept 

 there, this plan may answer the purpose; but if put 

 there on the approach of warm weather in the spring 

 they will hatch, even in the midst of the ice, as I know 

 from experience. 



