676 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



the greater will be the injury the progeny will 

 sustain. We ehall have occasion to recur to this 

 Bubject in the course of this paper. 



(2) This is entirely erroneous, we think, " This 

 new position or counter discovery" is, in the hum- 

 ble opinion of" tiie writer hereof, the only means 

 that will or can insure us the advantages of seve- 

 ral crops of worms, — five, or seven or seventy, as 

 you may please, — during a season. In the words 

 of a friend, (whose private letter we regret we 

 have not the privilege of publishing,) — " if true, 

 your new theory is the only means of rescuing it, 

 [the silk culture] from total failure; if erroneous, 

 it is impossible lor it to operate injuriously. All 

 the inconvenience it can produce is to put cultiva- 

 tors to the trouble of saving silk-worm eggs three 

 or four times during the season, instead of once. 

 If once will do, then of course there is no use 

 in repeating tfie operation ; but if you have to 

 do it six times, what does the trouble amount 

 tol and how is it to 'prostrate' the business?" 

 The writer of this extract is not an observer of a 

 day or a year; he has the advantage of five or 

 six years' experience, upon an extensive scale, 

 and w'lih personal supervision. As to the frequent 

 impositions that will be practised by unprincipled 

 venders of eggs, we have heretofore shown how 

 these evils may be avoided — that is by every per- 

 son producing his own eggs, — which, by the way, 

 he ought to do under any system ; for he will al- 

 ways, and under any circumstances, if he depends 

 upon others for eggs, be subject to more or less of 

 disappointment. We contend, however, that un- 

 der our system there will be less opportunity for 

 imposition of this kind than any other, for the ob- 

 vious reason that the vender will be required to fur- 

 nish evidence of the characterofthe eggs wii h much 

 more particularity than he is at present. Now he 

 i3 only required to say that the eggs are of a par- 

 ticular kind, of a healthy stock, and that they 

 have been properly kept. Under our system he 

 must furnish the precise date at which the worms 

 were hatched that produced the eggs, in addition 

 to all the above. Not only so, but he must furnish 

 eggs of all the different dates required, and satisfy 

 the purchaser of the correctness of those dates, 

 and vouch for it with his own rfisponsibility. 



(3) The position here assumed is clearly unte- 

 nable. If it were true that " all sorts of eggs, with- 

 out regard to the date of their deposite, are, if 

 sound, hatched, and produce good progenies," by 

 the application of heat, t/ien why are not silk- 

 worm eggs hatched the same season they are pro- 

 duced ! Doctor JMuse must know full well, that 

 eilk-worm eggs will not hatch the same season 

 they are produced by the worms, (except the two- 

 crop kinds) and therefore that something besides 

 '* the essential and unerring power of heat," is ne- 

 cessary for the hatching of the eggs. It is well 

 known that the common silk-worm eggs, though 

 produced in June, will withstand all ihe heat of 

 the succeeding July, August, and September, 

 without hatching ; and that in the ensuing spring 

 they will hatch, though the temperature be 

 many deijrees lower than that they had passed 

 through the season before. If nothing but heat 

 were required, why did they not hatch when the 

 mercury stood for weeks together at 80'^ and 90°, 

 the season before? and if heat be the "essential 

 power," why do they hatch in March and April, 

 when the temperature is many degrees lower than 



it was in the preceding July and August 1 But) 

 if the "es5ential power of heat" were all that ia 

 necessary to hatch silk-worm eggs, the Doctor 

 could easily accomplish his seven crops of worms, 

 even under the new system; lor, having perfect and 

 unlimited control over " the essential and unerring 

 power of heat," he could hatch the eggs in a day 

 or two after they are laid, and thus avoid all risk 

 of injury by retarding?, all expense of ice-housep, 

 and fill his cocooneries and occupy his fixtures, 

 seven times to his heart's content. 



But heat is not the "essential power" engaged 

 in the developement of silk-worms, or any other 

 insect or animal, nviparous or viviparous. Heat is 

 not life, though the latter is partly cherished and 

 supported by the former. We believe that tiine ia 

 an essential power in the generation of all animals, 

 oviparous and viviparous. The period of gesta- 

 tion required by viviparous animals in the uterus, 

 is required also in oviparous animals in the egg. 

 For example, with viviparous animals a certain 

 time is required after the germ is impresnated for 

 the embryo to mature. In the CRse most familiar 

 to us all, this time or period is nine months ; and 

 in all animals it is fixed by the laws of nature ; in 

 some cases eleven months, and in some others five 

 months ; each genus of animals having a period 

 of gestation of its own, and very few genera the 

 same. But in the case of oviparous animals, this 

 period of uterine gestation is substituted by gesta- 

 tion in the egg. Immediately after the germ ia 

 impregnated it is detached from the ovarium, and 

 the gestation of the new animal commences in the 

 egg. Now the question in dispute is, is there any 

 precise period of gestation required ; that is, is 

 there any particular time after the ega is laid be- 

 fore it will hatch? We know there is; and we 

 know that all the power of heat and all other 

 powers combined cannot abbreviate that period. 

 However diligently the hen may sit upon her 

 eggs, she cannot hatch them before the precise 

 time appointed by nature for their hatching — 

 twenty-one days. We know that in the case of 

 esrgs, the period of gestation — we mean the time 

 (rom the detachment of the germ to the hatching 

 of the egg — may be prolonged by artificial means 

 to a longer period than uterine gestation can ; but 

 we do not believe that the precise period has been 

 fixed by nature for every species of esg to hatch, 

 as certainly as has been the period of uterine ges- 

 tation ; and that ii] by the wiihholiiins the neces- 

 sary heat or air or any other essential power, the 

 egg is prevented hatchins at that period, its pro- 

 duct will suffer more and more according to the 

 length of time the hatching shall be retarded. If 

 eggs of any kind can be kept from hatching any 

 length of time desired, why can we not keep hens' 

 esrgs to any length of time we please by keeping 

 them cold ? If then a period of gestation be requi- 

 sitein oviparous as well as in viviparous animals, as 

 we contend is the case, then the eggs of all ani- 

 mals have a time certain fixed for their hatching ; 

 and if so, this period can neither be abbreviated 

 nor prolonged with impunity. We do not stop to 

 notice exceptions to the rule; with reasonable M 

 men this is not necessary in arguments of this 9 

 kind. For instance, many animals whose period * 

 of gestation is nine months, occasionally terminate 

 that process in seven, or eight months, and some- 

 times prolong it to ten months, and both without 

 material injury to the offspring j but these are only 



