1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



433 



Northampton also contains a silk cocoonery, late- 

 ly the property of Mr. Samuel Whitmarsh, capa- 

 ble of feeding lour or five millions of worms, 

 though the number at present does not exceed 

 800,000. The building is two hundred feet long 

 and two stories in height. It is filled with ranges 

 of sliding drawers of twine lattice work, on which 

 the worms leed. and these are intersected by al- 

 leys, so that there is abundance of both air and 

 light. 



The New England Silk Company has likewise 

 been formed at Boston with a capital of $100,000. 

 Their manufactory is under the superintendence 

 of Mr. Cobb of Dedham, whose works the com- 

 pany have purchased. It is wholly dependent at 

 present on foreign culture for its supply of mate- 

 rial, and is compelled to resort to the manufac- 

 ture of articles in which silk is only a component 

 part. 



The Connecticut Silk Factory at Hartford, has 

 a capital of $100,000. Their building is furnish- 

 ed with 100 looms, and preparatory machinery to 

 be moved by a steam engine of eight or ten horse 

 power. The want of stock compels this factory 

 also to the production of articles in which the pro- 

 portion of silk to the other materials is small. 

 There is also a factory in progress at Poughkeep- 

 sie, N. Y. At Concord, N. H. a farm has been 

 purchased for the cultivation of the mulberry. 



The establishment of the V r alentine Company 

 at Providence, R. I. now sold to a company from 

 New York and Boston, includes a plantation, con- 

 taining 30,000 trees, from four to five years old, 

 and from six to eight feet in height. It is sup- 

 posed, that for the next five years this plantation 

 will yield an average product of half a pound of 

 silk to a tree. This company has also manufac- 

 tured a considerable quantity of silk goods, and 

 fitted up a building 30 feet by 90, three st(*ries 

 high, to be exclusively devoted to this branch of 

 manufacture. The machinery is carried by steam. 

 A trial of the power loom in this factory has 

 proved that it will answer as well for silk as lor 

 cotton, and that, with experience in its manage- 

 ment, it will probably turn out as many yards of 

 the former as of the latter. A silk society has been 

 formed at New Haven. 



To encourage the production of this article a 

 bounty has been offered by the state of Massachu- 

 setts on reeled silk, and by Connecticut both on 

 this and on the trees themselves. The natural ad- 

 vantages, however, for the production, must of ne- 

 cessity, be greater in the middle and southern 

 states. 



The wild mulberry exists in abundance in Vir- 

 ginia and Mississippi, and in the forests of the 

 latter state^ silkworms are found growing sponta- 

 neously. The native tree, however, is not found 

 to produce silk of merchantable quality. It is 

 thought that by engrafting scions of the white or 

 Italian mulberry into these wild stocks, a tree will 

 be produced of hardier growth, and less liable to 

 injury from atmospheric changes. 



We are indebted for the above information to 

 the Silk Culturisf, a monthly publication, com- 

 menced in Hartfbld in April last, the pages of 

 which are principally devoted to this interesting to- 

 pic. To those engaged in the cultivation of the 

 mulberry, the instructions contained in this period- 

 ical must be highly valuable. From the novelty 

 of this branch of agriculture among us, infbrma- 



Vol. 111—55 



tion in regard to its details is peculiarly needed- 

 The journal is published by an association called 

 the Hartford County Silk Society, and furnished 

 to subscribers at 50 ce # nts per annum. 



THE NATIVE MULBERRY FOR SILK WORMS. 



The foregoing article shows at a glance that the peo- 

 ple ofNew England are about to make silk culture a large 

 and important branch of their rural economy. It is 

 there no new and untried speculation. The business 

 has long been pursued in Connecticut, and with re- 

 sults so satisfactory as to induce these recent and far 

 more expensive investments for the same object. If 

 good profits can be there made, in the cold and un- 

 friendly climate of New England, (where it is yet a 

 problem to be solved whether the best species of mul- 

 berry can stand the winter's cold,) how much more 

 profitable would the business be in Virginia and the 

 more southern states? Our cheaper slave labor would 

 also afford advantages, and many aged or infirm hands 

 could be profitably employed in this business, who are 

 now a useless expense to their owners.' Much land 

 that yields no net profit under usual crops, would 

 serve well for mulberry trees. 



The opinion expressed above of the worthlessness of 

 the native (black or red) mulberry tree, for yielding 

 silk, is as general as it is erroneous — and the error 

 (though of use to nursery-men,) is very injurious to 

 the community, in causing all efforts in silk making to 

 be postponed until mulberry trees can be reared. Now, 

 though professing to know very little of silk culture, 

 we will venture to assert that those who can succeed 

 well by using leaves of the white mulberry, will not 

 fail, nor do a much worse business, with the black. 

 The black is doubtless somewhat inferior to the white 

 mulberry, as this is to the Chinese: but the difference 

 of products from either two, would not be so great as 

 would be made by the ditference of care and manage- 

 ment of almost any two new silk growers. 



Dr. Wm. I. Cocke of Sussex, Va. some years ago 

 fed some silkworms on the leaves of the cemmon mul- 

 berry, and others on those of the white, and prepared 

 sewing silk from each kind. It was either his first or 

 second year's trial of the culture, and on a small scale, 

 and of course attended with all the disadvantages of a 

 new beginning, independent of any inferiority of the 

 kind of food used. He sent specimens of the silk 

 from the common black mulberry to Mr. Du Ponceau 

 of Philadelphia, who,in conjunction with Mr. D'Hom- 

 ergue, was then writing to urge the undertaking of this 

 business. The specimen was considered by the latter 

 as so excellent, that he at once pronounced, in the 

 presence of the gentleman who carried it, that it could 

 not have been the product of the native mulberry. 

 The bearer of the specimens, however, was enabled 

 to declare the contrary, he having been during the 

 time, a member of Dr. Cocke's family, and acquainted 

 with all the circumstances of the experiment. Still 

 no subsequent allusion was made to this circum- 

 stance, though it was so well calculated to encourage 

 early and general efforts — and probably, because of 

 some lingering remains of doubt of the correctness of 



