FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 1 



some sellers among us are already asking less 

 per thousand (or huds than they did only a \'e\v 

 weeks ago, which indicates that the demand is 

 nearly or quite supphed. and that it is notorious; 

 nineiy-rune purchasers out of a hundred buy to 

 sell, and not to feed silk-worms, which require a 

 much cheaper diet tlian mulberry hushes at one 

 or at two dollars each. This cheaper food will 

 soon he raised lor them by the enormous specula- 

 tions in that article now raging every where and 

 aggravated to a most dagerous height by the lust 

 o(" innrdinaie gain. Then but not until then, can 

 we rationally expect that the making of silk will 

 become a regular and general business. The tiict 

 of iis perfect praciicablity is now established be- 

 yond a doubt by the great profits which many of 

 our northern brelhern have derived from it — al- 

 though but lew, compared with our whole popula- 

 tion, have yet carried it to much extent. That 

 we should not now see multitudes engaged in it, 

 seems entirely attributable to the multicaulis lever, 

 which has excited the belief that vastly more 

 money can be made by cultivating food for silk- 

 worms, than by raising the worms themselves. 



Another reason lor believing that the manu- 

 f icturing of silk will become, in a few years, a 

 permanent source of great individual and na- 

 tional wealth, is the enormous present consumption 

 of this article, from foreign countries no better 

 adapted than ours, if as well, to iis production. 

 By the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 

 made to congress on the 8th of iVlay last, it ap- 

 pears that there were imported into the United 

 States during the fiscal year ending on the 30th 

 of September, 1837, 



Of manufactures wholly silk $11,114,170 wnrtli 

 Of do. silk and worsted mixed 1,810,947 do. 



Mal;ing the enormous total ;§ 12,92-5, 120 

 When we add to this the probable amount of our 

 home manufactures of domestic silk, it will not be 

 an extravigant estimate to say, that the value of 

 silk goods annually consumed in our country is 

 not much, if any short of one dollar per head lor 

 eve^y man, woman and child, in the United 

 States ! ! Some possibly may ascribe this chiefly 

 to fashon ; but after making every reasonable al- 

 lowance for this intiuence when we reflect that 

 silk is much more lasting than cotton, and better 

 adapted for most articles of wearing apparel, as 

 well as several other thmgs, we cannot lor a mo- 

 ment doubt that its consumption will increase in 

 full proportion to the decrease in the cost of its 

 production. This is the natural, the constant ef- 

 fect, whenever the supply of any useful article 

 whatever, either fully equals or a little exceeds the 

 previous demand. More of it will certainly bi^, 

 purchased, because the reduced price brinirs it 

 within the means of a greater number of con- 

 sumers; and thus it is, that demand and sap- 

 ply will forever act and react upon each other, 

 when trade is fi-ee. 



From the Cultivntor. 

 THE MULIi!:;URY. 



Westnol alone, amonrr oar cotempnnu-i-^s of 

 the press, lor a long time, m maintaininLr, that the 

 moras niuliicanlis was too tender to witlistan 1 our 



northern winters. We see our opinion now con- 

 firmed by some of the longest established grow- 

 ers, who, if we remember right, once maintained 

 a contrary opmion. And we notice in a late 

 •Farmer and Gardener,' printed at Baltimore, Md., 

 "directions for preserving the multicaulis through 

 the winter," — which consists in taking them from 

 the ground, and covering them with earth in the 

 cellar. At a late farujers' meeting in Northamp- 

 ton, Dr. Stebbins and Mr. Whitmarsh, who have 

 both, we believe, for a number of years, been ac- 

 tively engaged in propagating and vending the 

 mulberry, pronounced the niulticaulis not suitable 

 for our climate. We subjoin quotations from the 

 remarks of each : 



"Experience has taught us," says Dr. Steb- 

 bins, " that our climate is not congenial to the ha- 

 bits of the morus multicaulis plant ; many thou- 

 sands have been lost every year in consequence 

 of not providing a shelter and protection for them 

 against the frosts of autumn, and the severe cold 

 of our winters. It has been demonstrated to us 

 by expensive experiment, that the tree is not suit- 

 ed to our borean seasons." 



" The principal objections to this tree is," re- 

 marks Mr. Whitmarsh, "that the leaves contain 

 a great proportion of watery matter, which causes 

 the worms that are led upon them to be unhealthy, 

 and hence injure their sill(. He thought this ob- 

 jection would operate more seriously at the south, 

 where the seasons are longer and warmer. The 

 heat would cause them to grow more rapidly, the 

 leaves would be larger, and he thought, imbibe 

 more moisture. He regretted the universal adop- 

 tion of this tree at the south, and fieared that a 

 failure caused by this fact, would retard the pro- 

 cress of the [silk] business ten years, by discou- 

 raging so many who would become losers." 



We quote the above as sfTording hmts that may 

 he useful to those who are about embarking in 

 the silk business ; though we somewhat doubt if 

 Mr. W. is correct in his objections to the leaves of 

 the multicaulis, and we think he is decidedly in 

 error in supposing that this objection, ifwell found- 

 ed, will be greater at the south than in the north ; 

 the greater heat at the south decreasing, instead 

 of increasing, the succulence or watery properties 

 of the foliage. 



These two gentlemen give a decided preference 

 to what they term the j/lpine, which Mr. W. 

 says is " the kind universally used in France and 

 Italy." We do noi mean to charge these gentle- 

 men with wanton deception, for we have a high 

 opinion of their good standing; yet there is some- 

 thing so mystical in these declarations, so con- 

 trary to receive opinions, that we can not pass 

 them as current truths, without asking for some 

 farther explanation. We have examined all the 

 botanical and other works in our possession which 

 treat of the mulberry, and they are neither few 

 nor of doubtful authority — and yet we can not 

 find in any one the term j^lpine given to any spe- 

 cies or variety of the mulberry. And as to the 

 assertion that the Alpine is universally used in 

 France and Italy, we have Gen. Tallmadffe's de- 

 claration, that in Finizio's establishment, in Ifal\', 

 which he visited, 3,000 lbs. of sewing silk are 

 made a week, mostly from the black mulberry 

 CM. nigra j) that Finizio stated to him, that thii 

 worm fed on the black mulberry made the stronjx- 

 est thread; that on the white mulberry finer and 



