546 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



tarcling eggs for short periods ; all which have 

 been duly considered and will he noticed in their 

 proper place — suffice it to say here, none ol' those 

 cases have been found to be insuperable objections 

 to the position above assumed. 



The great cause of disease and death in the late 

 broods of silk worms, then, we consider to have 

 been the attempt by means of very \o\.v tempera- 

 tures, to protract the hatching of the eggs too 

 long. For example, eggs that would in the natural 

 temperature of the atmosphere have hatched on 

 the first day of JVlay, were protracted in their 

 hatching till the first of July, and consequently 

 the germs in the eggs were either killed or so 

 weakened, that disease and death (olio wed sooner 

 or later after they hatched. That the extreme 

 low temperature of the ice-house did any injury 

 independent of that inflicted by the protraction oi' 

 hatchincr, we do not believe. We have had suffi- 

 cient proof of the contrary. It appears to us that 

 the simple prolongation of the lime that the insect 

 remained in the egor, caused all the injury. We 

 know that very little if any injury will be done by 

 retarding the hatching one month, and we know 

 that exp'osure to warmth will accelerate the hatch- 

 ing about the same lime. We also know that a 

 good cool, dry cellar, will retard the hatching of 

 tiie eggs one "month, and therefore, if our views 

 be correct, no ice-house will be necessary to the 

 keeping of eggs in any part of the country. The 

 remedy, therefore, for the great evil complained of, 

 is apparent, and we now proceed to it. 



Assuming the above po.-iiion to be correct, if we 

 wish to hatch out a brood of worms on the first 

 day of each month, say first of JVlay, June, July 

 and August, all we have to do is to use eggs produ- 

 ced last year from worms tl at were iiatched at 

 those periods respectively. To accomplish this, 

 we must mark each lot of eggs with the dale at 

 which the worms that produced them were hatch- 

 ed, and when we bring them out for hatching, 

 take those whose date corresponds with the time 

 we bring them out io hatch. For example, on 

 the 1st of July, 1841, we bring out a lot of eggs 

 to hatch ; we therefore take those marked 1st of 

 ,Tuly, 1840, and so on with the various parcels. 

 To enable us to accomplish this, that is, to get 

 possession of eggs of these various periods, it will 

 only be necessary to protract the natural hatchings 

 about one month each year. Say we have only 

 one parcel of esss, and they were produced from 

 worms hatched at the natural period in the spring. 

 We will hatch half of them at the natural period, 

 and protract the other hall" by keeping them in the 

 cellar one month, bringing them out to hatch on 

 the 1st of June. We mark the eggs produced by 

 both these parcels of worms, the one ' 1st of May,' 

 the other ' 1st of June.' Next year, we take llie 

 eggs marked 1st of June, hatch half of them ac- 

 cording to their date, and protract the other half to 

 1st of July. The year after we take those marked 

 let of July, hatch half of them, and protract the 

 other half till the first of August. This system 

 will supply us with eggs for hatching during the 

 whole season, without injury to the eggs or the 

 worms. If it be desired to have hatchings every 

 two weeks, either of the two parcels with dales 

 nearest the intermediate periods, will be proper for 

 use. 



We shall now proceed to state some facts in 

 illustration of the above theory, and which have 



suggested to us these views. A gentleman in 

 Delaware, last year produced one of the finest 

 parcels of eggs we ever saw. He placed them in 

 the ice-house in the winter, where they remained 

 till the last of May, when he sent them to us. He 

 packed them in a box of ice, while in the ice-house, 

 in which box they came to ua and were put in 

 our refrigerator, without any exposure to the warm 

 atmosphere. These egas we sent to different 

 parts of the union in small parcels, from the 1st 

 of June to the 23d of July. The first parcels we 

 sent away, hatched in fi-om ten to thirteen days 

 from the tmie they left us. But the time after 

 leaving our refrigerator until they hatched, be- 

 became gradually shorter until the 23d of July, 

 when they hatched in 24 to 30 hours. We heard 

 of nearly all the parcels we sent away, and nearly 

 all did unusually well ; the exceptions were the 

 two or three last parcels sent off, and one of the 

 last parcels was a failure, the worms were weakly, 

 became sickly, and as they approached spinning, 

 sickened and died of various diseases. Every 

 rule of good management was observed, and va- 

 rious remedies resorted to without avail. One 

 lot of the same eggs was sent to a gentleman in 

 Virginia, on the 20ih of June, By some accident 

 the letter was delayed on its passage in the mail 

 iwenly-one days,s;o that he did not receive the eggs 

 till the llih oi" July. They were all hatched, of 

 course, and many of them dead. How long they 

 had been hatched, can of course only be conjectured. 

 Other parcels we know hatched in ten days alter 

 leaving us ; but we cannot conceive of the ability 

 of the young worms to sustain lilie eleven days 

 without Ibod. However, the gentleman immedi- 

 ately spread them out on his tables, and gave them 

 leaves, which all that were alive commenced eat- 

 ing greedily. The result was, he gathered 3000 

 of the finest cocoons he ever saw. During the 

 whole period of their feeding, he did not lose a 

 dozen — having had no diseases among them. 

 We ought to have stated that we sent him half an 

 ounce of eggs. This fiict proves of itself the good 

 quality of the eggs at the time we sent them ; if it 

 did not, we could adduce abundance of other testi- 

 mony ; that is, they were good on the 20ih June. 

 The other fact stated above, proves that they 

 were not good on the 23d of July. If the mere 

 retarding their hatching was not the cause of their 

 bad quality in July, what was? The worms that 

 produced these eggs were hatched, or commenced 

 hatching, on the 20ih of May, last year. These 

 liicts, we think, yo fiir to establish the correctness 

 of our views as above given, that the egss of 

 worms that were hatched on the 20ih of May, 

 1839, would naturally have hatched on the 20th of 

 May, 1840, but were capable of being retarded in 

 hatching till the 20th of June, without injury ; that 

 when retarded to a later period, they sufi'ered more 

 or less in proportion to the length of time they 

 were so retarded. 



We have several other facts that correspond 

 precisely with the above in all parts, both as to at- 

 tending circumstances and results, but we deem 

 it useless to waste time and room in stating them, 

 aa they could only prove that we have not made 

 up our opinion upon the evidence of a single isolat- 

 ed fact, and this we hope it is not necessary lo 

 prove. 



If the above theory be correct, it is easy to ac- 

 count for most of the fijilures that have occurred io 



