162 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



foreign soil and climate, until, in two, or, at most, three years, its fine odor and other charao- 

 teristics disappctir. So is it with wheat. Bnt how estsy for men who disdain to surrender 

 thomselves to that w's inertia:, that sloth, which is so apt to overcome — shall we write it ? — 

 farmers, ahove all people ! — how easy for such men to supply themselves, as occasion may de- 

 mand, with that change of seed which, it cannot be denied, sometimes gives capacity to re- 

 sist some unpropitioiis iuflueuce of climate, or disastrous ravages of the countless tribe of 

 msects, to which the (Jod of Nature has given the same right that man enjoys to derive nour- 

 islmient from plants and animals, and to some of which " even man himself pays tribute with 

 his blood." lEd. Farm. Lib 



CULTURE OF SILK. 



Mr. Editor : In looking through a recent French work, I met with an article entitled' 

 " Failure in the Attempt to grow Silk iu the United States, and the Reasons for it." Though 

 it might readily be shown, in the neighborhood of Macon, Geo. and elsewhere, that the andior 

 is mistaken in the assumption that we have failed in the introduction of the silk culture, yet, 

 as his essay contains many sound, practical views and, withal, some novelty, I have be- 

 stowed an idle hour on its translation, in the hope that it may prove acceptable and useful to 

 such of your patriotic readers as are determined to persevere in establishing for their country a 

 product for which .she annually pays -f 10,000,000 at least to foreigners. Let them hear the judg- 

 ment of those who had begun to dread their rivalry. F. G. S. 



" Failure in the Attempt to grow Silk in the United States. — It is but a few years 

 since the United States, jealous of our success in the production of silk, endeavored to introduce 

 its cultivation there, in many parts of the Union, particularly in the Middle and Southern 

 States, immense plantations of the mulberry were made. The soil was so fertile, and the 

 jdanters so energetic, that we had reason to fear that the result for us would soon be a formida- 

 ble competition. And was there not, in fact, ground for apprehension in .«ceing one of our 

 national products thus attracting the attention of a peojile never turned aside by difficulties, 

 and so ardent in the jirosecution of novel enterpri.ses 1 Hence it was with regret that we ■wit- 

 nessed the departure from our shores of vessels laden with mulberry-trees and barrels of silk- 

 wonn eggs ; for faithful to their habits of enormous speculation, the Americans planted forests 

 of mulberries, and to this is their failure to be attributed. If what we learn be true, the pro- 

 duction of silk in the United States is now hopeless : the trees are being grubbed up and the 

 filatures closed. The discouriigement is so complete that notwithstanding the vast scale of some 

 of their establishments, the product this year in cocoons will scarcely reach 180,000 kilogrammes. 

 We may now continue, without danger of competition, to draw annually from the United 

 ytates some $10,000,000 in exchange for our silks. 



" Let us now endeavor to account for these disastrous results. We at once i>crceive a capital 

 •■rror in the exaggerated extent of their plantations and filatures; and it is held apropos to recall 

 a truth that has been too often misunderstood : The producfivn of silk in no ivi^e resembles 

 •most other industrial productions. We may weave flax, wool, or cotton to any extent. With 

 talent, capital and machinery, a man may increase his manufacture indefinitely ; but it is indis- 

 pensable to the succes.sful management of a mulberry plantation that the inunber of trees should 

 be limited. As a good shophei-d should know individually each of his flock, so widi the cultiva- 

 tor of the mulberry — he should study the wants and qualities of each particular tree. What is 

 there to be expected of a plantation to be abandoned to itself, and visited but to bo despoiled ? So 

 with the management of worms: iu large establishments an active and minute inspection is diffi- 

 cult; the silk-worm, which in an isolated state is hardy and robust, loses this quality in a measure 

 when gathered together in mas.ses. The greater the agglomeration, the grcaicr the danger; hence 

 the necessity of small rooms and a very limited number of worms. Another cause that has acted 

 more powerfully and fatally than any, was the selection of the Mnlticaiilis instead o( the Brous.'ia 

 mulberry : the former is so sensitive that the sap oscillates in its stem at the slightest variation of 

 temperature ; its existence is precarious in France — what must it be in a climate so viuiable as 

 that of the United States. 



"Another fatal error has been the selection of the richest soil, on which to make the planta- 

 tions a proof of the old adage, "Uiattoo much of a good thing is good for nothing," is the fact 

 that leaves from trees of exurborant foliage aftbrd less substantial food, produce less silk, and 

 are frequently unhealthy. Hence, we liear every day of the muscardine being produced by 

 leaves from trees of a luxuriant vegetation. 



" Mr. Mallau de Callesaume has proved that die muscardine is much more frequent whh worms 

 fed upon leaves from young wood, and tliat the disease dimiuisbes as leaves are small and drj,- ; 

 >-acb as produced on sinull and alJcr-wood.'' 



