27 



leaves you may remove them easily. They ought now 

 to be supplied with fresh tender leaves three times a 

 day. As the leaves when very young will dry so much in 

 a short time if exposed to the air as to be unfit for use, 

 you may put them in a glazed vessel or keep them cover- 

 ed in a cellar or cool place ; by which means the leaves 

 may be kept good for two or three days.* Besides, it is 

 well to have always in your house at a time, a stock of 

 leaves sufficient at least for three days' provision for your 

 worms in case of wet weather. If leaves are given when 

 wet they will cause disease. Be careful never to pull the 

 leaves when wet, either with rain or dew, except on abso- 

 lute necessity, and in that case you must spread them and 

 turn them, that the leaves may be perfectly dry before you 

 give them to the worms ; rats, mice, spiders, ants and 

 fowls are very destructive to the worms ; care must be 

 taken therefore to keep them out of the way of all such 

 enemies. 



THE NURSERY, SHELVES, ETC. 



In Europe laboratories have been constructed with 

 great care and expense ; but however convenient these 

 may be, they are by no means necessary to success in 

 rearing silk worms ; almost any building will answer for 

 that purpose. I have reared them myself with success in 

 a barn, in my cellar kitchen, and other rooms of my 

 dwelling-house, and in the lower story of Tremont House 



* Mr D'H. proposes the following method to preserve leaves : 

 Put them under cover on a brick pavement, or gravelled floor; 

 turn them over and place them further where it is not damp (for 

 they always leave a dampness where they lie) three or four times 

 a day or an hour before you feed the worms; you may thus keep 

 them three or four days. The leaf wants air to keep fresh. 



