312 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. a 



his bloom to exhibit. Pompefanebre, a valuable 

 or rather a high-priced flower, is certainly a worse 

 flower than a Polyphemus, in every stage, from 

 blight to perfection, and as a single flower in com- 

 pelition, it will not create a moment's doubt. 

 The Metropolitan Society's rules would enable 

 a man, who never saw flowers, to judge which 

 was the best, and there is no small difficulty, when 

 old cultivators are selected lor judges, to keep 

 them Irom giving the prizes to dear flowers in- 

 stead of those of good properties. These, how- 

 ever,are difficulties easily got over; and we conclude 

 for the present by congratulating the general cul- 

 tivator of flowers upon the great advantages de- 

 rived from coming to a general understanding 

 upon what are esteemed the real properties oi' 

 flowers. 



A FIRST EXPERIMENT OF REARING SILK- 

 WORMS UNDER VERY DISADVANTAGEOUS 

 CIRCUMSTANCES. 



For tlie Farmers' Register. 



The weather had been unusually warm, lor the 

 season, for some days preceding the 13th of April, 

 on which day it changed to cloudy, raw and cold, 

 with drizzle of rain in the evening. Some silk- 

 worms' eggs, which had been brought to Peters- 

 burg, for sale, two days belbre, (and probably 

 exposed to much of the then warm weather, on 

 the journey,) were observed this forenoon (13lh) 

 to be hatching; and by evening, so many had 

 hatched, that it was evident the eggs were no lon- 

 ger worth any thing for fiiture sale, and both the 

 weather and the state of the mulberry trees seemed 

 to make it almost a hopeless attempt to raise the 

 worms with any success. Under these circum- 

 stances, the young worms, and the eggs still un- 

 hatched, were given away to any person who 

 would take the trouble of attending to them. 1 

 took some, partly to try the experiment of their 

 ability to bear such very inclement weather, and 

 partly to preserve the lives of as many as possible, 

 until other persons, better provided with food, 

 could take them off my hands. Not having a sin- 

 gle mulberry tree in this neighborhood, nor indeed 

 then knowing where one was standing, of course 

 I had not counted on feeding silk-worms here. 

 The permission to use the leaves of a lew white 

 mulberry trees was soon obtained. The. largest 

 leaves of the most vigorous shoots of white niul- 

 berry were then not larger than a half-dime, and 

 generally the leaf buds were but barely opened. 

 The native mulberry leaves {niorus rubra,) had not 

 then opened enough to be used at all. 



The very early commencement of this experi- 

 ment, the unfriendly stale the weather and gene- 

 ral low average temperature throughout, and the 

 other and great disadvantages to the silk-worms 

 caused by the want of experience and knowledge 

 of their proper management, and the want of 

 suitable accommodations, all concurred to make 

 the experiment, almost to its close, of very doubt- 

 ful issue, as well as very troublesome in execution; 

 and there was little hope, from the commencement, 

 of even a moderate degree ol success in the result. 

 The products finally obtained, though doubtless of 

 much less amount than better, proper, and yet per- 

 fectly and easily attainable means would certainly 

 *eeure, are yet such as to induce the opinion that 



it may be useful to other inexperienced beginners, 

 to know the general facts of a rearing conducted 

 under circumstances so unpropitious in almost 

 every particular. A very minute diary was kept, 

 which furnishes the materials for the Ibllowing ab- 

 stract. It would be useless to present all the en- 

 tries in lull; as many of them are but details of 

 mishaps, of mismanagement, and of erroneous 

 opinions which were corrected by longer observa- 

 tion. Nothing will be withheld, however, in this 

 general statement, that is deemed material. 



The weather was throughout too cold; no one 

 day even having average temperature as high as 

 is deemed requisite by the writers on silk culture. 

 This will be best seen Irom the record kept of ob- 

 servations of the thermometer, of both the exter- 

 nal air, and that of the apartment in which the 

 worms were led. The thermon)eter showing the 

 former, was suspended beneath the outer eaves of 

 a porch on the north side of the house, and pro- 

 tected by its situation always from the sun. An- 

 other thermometer (both alike and correct,) hung 

 in the middle of the leeding room, the size of which 

 is 10 feel by 12, and 7^ feet high. It is a common 

 apartment in the upper story of a wooden dwelling 

 house, liicing tlie south, in which side is its only 

 window, and the door to the north. The temper- 

 ature was pjst such as would be of any room in a 

 common framed building, lathed and plastered, 

 without being aOected by artificial heat. The 

 fires in the house, during the coldest ui' the weather, 

 were too distant to have raised the temperature of 

 this room, in lair weather, whenever the exte- 

 rior temperature was highest, and that was almost 

 always the case in the middle of the day, (or liom 

 10 to 4,) the window was raised, and the door 

 kept open ; unless the wind was too high, and that 

 was also often the case. At such times, the outer 

 air was admitted through an upper pane of the 

 window, broken out lor the purpose, and which 

 was but imperfectly closed with paper at night, 

 and in rainy weather. Thus, low as the interior 

 temperature may appear at 2 o'clock, it was gene- 

 rally some degrees higher than it would have 

 been, if the outer and then warmer air had not 

 been freely admitted. It usually continued as 

 warm within, as at 2 P. M., until 5, and some- 

 times to 7. The door of the room opened to a stair- 

 case, and thence to the outer door below, which 

 was rarely closed, in any weather, as long as any 

 of the family were awake. It may be observed 

 however fi-om the record, that notwithstanding the 

 want of any proper means of moderating the ex- 

 tremes of the variations of external temperature, 

 or preventing the entrance of the outer air, that 

 the fluctualions were very far less within than 

 without. 



The observations of temperature were usually 

 made a little alter sunrise, about 2 o'clock, and 

 and at 9 at night, or something later, and always 

 on the two thermometers at the same time. Small 

 variations from these limes were not regarded ; but 

 some material ones will be marked. 



For accommodations, at first there was nothing 

 belter than wide and shallow paste-board trays or 

 tops of boxes, (sush as merchants keep fine goods 

 in,) and sheets of papers laid upon two common 

 dining tables. After the worms had beconiv; 

 nmcir crowded, (and indeed they were loo much 

 crowded throughout,) and were suflering lor en- 

 larged space, lour feeding shelves were put i.p, 1^ 



