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F A R JM E R S ' REGISTER 



515 



obvialeil wiiliout ciilliculty, t)y strict attention. F 

 need not liaip upun this siilV|ci;l lonirer, I am sure. 

 Those wlio will talic thi; utiove ailvico will profit 

 by it; ihoso wlio will not, will bo iorceJ to adoitt 

 it by cx|)eiip,ncc. 



Al'ior an ordinary sized skein is wound upon the 

 bars o( ilie reel, it is to be taken of!', hung up, and 

 another skein eonnnenced in the same tnaiiner. 

 The reel «fenerally has two or more sets of arms, 

 and when a skein is lull, the arms or ruMninjir part 

 of the reel is taken oil' ihc franie and set aside to 

 dry ihe silk, alter wiiich it is taken from the bars, 

 placed upon a swift, and wound on to bobbins ; 

 wiien any number of the bobbins may be com- 

 bined, called doubhn<r, and twisted toirethor on a 

 common spinning wheel, to make pewui<;j silk. 



If it be intended lor sale in the slate of raw silk, 

 the skeins are to be careliilly twisted and doubled, 

 and thus brou^-ht iito a compact Ibrm, tied with a 

 string, and thus packed up lor market. 



For SEWING SILK, a sufficient number of bob- 

 bins are to be combined to make one thread of sew- 

 ing silk, twisted on a common wheel, reeled off 

 into hanks, the latter twisted partially, and Iblded 

 by taking two or three turns, as in preparinir com- 

 mon yarn lor dying, put into some perlecily clear 

 rain or river water, in which a quarter of a pound 

 of good country soap to the jjallon of water has 

 been dissolved, and simmered over the fire three 

 or four hours, or until the silk is perfectly freed of 

 its gum, and becomes white. It must then be 

 taken out, rinsed in hut rain or river water, and 

 then in cold water. In this operation great care 

 must be observed to dip it gently, drawinii it to 

 and fro in the water, so as not to get the silk tan- 

 gled, or in a snarl. It is then to be hung up to 

 dry; alter which it may be doubled and twisted 

 into sewing silk. It should never be put up into 

 lartre skeins, as it is apt to get tangled. One hun- 

 dred threads is a good sized skein. If the whole 

 work has been properly done, the silk will be beau- 

 tifully white, with a rich gloss. 



Before the last twisting lor sewing silk, if to be 

 colored, it may be dyed of t!ie desired color, and 

 then twisted. 



The above directions will apply to all kinds of 

 reels generally. The only ditfierence consists in 

 the following particulars. With Brooks' and 

 other reels of American construction, the silk is 

 run directly upon bobbins, two or more bobbins 

 are combined, and the thread produced passes 

 through fliers and is thus twisted ; it is then 

 wound upon a common reel into hanks, and folded 

 for bleaching by boiling, as above described. 



Brooks' machine is said to reel double and twist 

 at the same time ; but it does not do it strictly 

 speaking. The thread first passes on to the bob- 

 bins partially twisted ; when the bobbins are full, 

 the thread from two or more of them is comijined, 

 and passed through the machine again, when it is 

 twisted into sewing silk. There are lour filers to 

 this machine, two are used for reeling and the 

 other two lor doubling and twisting the silk that 

 has before passed through the other fliers. I 

 think it were belter to use all the fliers liir reeling ;. 

 and after reeling as much as is desired, then to 

 use all the fliers lor doubling and twisting. For 

 domestic liimily purposes, this machine is admira- 

 bly adapted. It makes excellent sewing silk and 

 thread fi)r knitting. Large establishments will of 

 course not need instruction as to the machinery to 

 be used, from me. 



Waste silk, perforated and imperlect co- 

 coons, may be easily converted to useful purposes. 

 'I'he cocoons are to be cut open with scissors, the 

 shell of the chrjsalis taken out, and the cocoon, ti - 

 gether with all other waste silk, put into water, 

 and the gum extracted as above. It is then to be 

 rinsed, dried, picked fine, carded and spun like 

 flax-tow, and makes most beautiful and durable 

 stockings and gloves. The better method is, after 

 the gum has been extracted, to take the mass of 

 fibre, stretch it out, and cut the whole into pieces 

 five or six inches long, like cutting a skein ofyarn. 

 The fibres are tiien nut too long lor the operation 

 of carding. 



Concluding Remarks. 



I have now given all the instruction necessary 

 to a complete domestic silk establishment; such as 

 will enable every larmer's liimily to pursue the 

 business in a domcs'ic way, and to make it the 

 most profitable pin-vwney affair to which the 

 young ladies can possibly turn their attention. 

 Indeed all they make from it will be so much clear 

 gain ; lor none but otherwise idle hours need be 

 appropriated to it, except in the reeling, and in 

 most cases not even in that. A young lady in 

 any larmer's family, can thus make five to ten 

 pounds of sewing silk or knitting silk, or raw silk 

 lor sale; and not only not work hanl, but do 

 scarcely more than occupy hours that would other- 

 wise hang heavily on her hands. 



I feel called upon by the peculiar situation I oc- 

 cupy, to make a few remarks in relation to the 

 profits and prospects of the silk-culture in the 

 United States. I have said belbre, that we shall 

 become a great silk producing country; that ere 

 long we shall supply the factories of Euto[)e with 

 the most valuable part of their raw silk, as we do 

 now with cotton. This I conceive nothing can 

 prevent. That we shall also, in the course of no 

 very long time, become the manufacturers and 

 exporters of finished silk goods, is clearly inferri- 

 ble from the first proposition. From this it will 

 of course be inferred that I consider the produc- 

 tion of silk, in all its branches, a profitable busi- 

 ness ; and I do so consider it. My experiments 

 lor twelve years past have clearly satisfied my 

 mind upon this point. But I do not consider it as 

 profitable as many of the ardent friends of the 

 cause would make us believe. I do not consider 

 it suflicienily profltable to authorize ti:irmers, me- 

 chanics, lawyers, doctors, and merchants, univer- 

 sally to abandon their old and vvell understood 

 pursuits, to enter into this, which they do not un- 

 derstand. It is undoubtedly a sale and a lucrative 

 business, when well understood and well pursued; 

 but that any budy can give up Ids ordinary occu- 

 pation, step into this, •■dnd make his Ibrtune by it, 

 like the drawing of a prize in a lottery, must not 

 be expected. We often see calculations made of 

 the amount of money that can be made from an 

 acre of ground. All such are clearly fallacious. 

 No dependence can be placed upon them, simply 

 because the business has not been sufficiently 

 [jractised in this country to allbrd any good 

 gr juiids lor them. And then, again, as labor with 

 us IS more costly than land, it is mere proper to 

 iuqaire how much each hand can make, especial- 

 ly as more than nine-tenihs of the value of the 

 silk is derived from the laboj expended in its pro- 



