SILK CULTIVATION. 361 



lished a pamphlet on the culture of the silk-worm, in 

 which they will learn how to kill ennui and clothe them- 

 selves in silk. 



The following remarks, lately addressed to Dr Hos- 

 kyns by a gentleman at Salisbury deeply conversant 

 with silk cultivation and manufacture, are very interest- 

 ing and suggestive : 



" I have introduced a notice of the Bombyx cynihia 

 as a silk-producing insect in some lectures recently de- 

 livered by me, and I am convinced that this branch of 

 industry may be most profitably introduced into our 

 union workhouses. There is a large amount of labour 

 wasted, simply because it has not been profitably ap- 

 plied. Plant, therefore, the ailanthus shrub, and let 

 the women and children attend to the worms. Pay 

 them a percentage upon the result, and divide the in- 

 mates into sections, so that there may be honest rivalry. 

 The sections would be stimulated- to exertion by the 

 personal interest each individual would have in the re- 

 sult, and section would soon compete with section for 

 superiority. I see no reason why, in reformatories, 

 penitentiaries, and the like, some effort should not be 

 made to rear these worms. In fact, wherever there is 

 unapplied child or female labour it can be advantage- 

 ously introduced. The ratepayers would not alone 

 benefit ; habits of industry and method would be in- 

 sensibly taught, and with care the present pauper might 

 become a silk-grower either for the capitalist or on his 

 own account." 



We have not yet commended the doings of the accli- 

 matisation societies to the support of British agricul- 

 turists, on the ground that they greatly concern them- 

 selves in adding to the number of vegetable substances 

 fit for human food. The Bulletin of the French Society 

 is full of interesting notices of plants and tubers, the 

 acclimatisation of which is desirable. In the reports of 

 the British Society we have an account of experiments 



