160 



New Englanders have always been distinguished. These qual- 

 ities may sometimes degenerate into troublesome impertinence 

 and low cunning and overreaching, but these instances are 

 much less the peculiarity of our people than in general they 

 have credit for. On the other hand, the instances are far more 

 numerous in which they prove themselves the foundation of 

 the highest intellectual power, the noblest personal indepen- 

 dence; and the most distinguished public usefulness. 



XVIII. Silk. — I should have adverted earlier to the cul- 

 ture of silk in this county had I not gone largely into this mat- 

 ter in my Third Report. Since the publication of that Report 

 farther experiments have been made, which, if they have not 

 met the high-wrought expectations and the golden dreams in 

 which some have indulged, fully demonstrate that, under cer- 

 tain circumstances, the culture of silk may be made a profitable 

 branch of husbandry ; and where a certain kind of labor 

 abounds which would be unavailable in severer employments, 

 the culture of silk may become a most valuable branch of do- 

 mestic economy. The time, I believe, is not distant when 

 much more than this may be looked for ; and it may become a 

 specific and independent article of culture, yielding an ample 

 remuneration for the labor and capital employed. 



In many cases the last year the cultivators of silk experienced 

 severe disappointments in the destruction of their worms by 

 disease. I regretted that I had no opportunity of seeing this 

 disease ; but it is understood to be a disease well known among 

 the silk culturists of Europe under the designation of musca- 

 dine ; and that an efficient remedy is found in sprinkling the 

 worms with newly slacked lime. The experiments of the 

 present season will undoubtedly furnish most valuable informa- 

 tion on this subject. 



An invention likewise of an ingeniously constructed frame, 

 by Edmund Morris, of Burlington, New Jersey, by which the 

 care and cleaning of the worms are much facilitated, promises 

 great advantages. 



