294 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



215. Sericulture. Sericulture will probably become an 

 important branch of California!! agriculture. China, Japan, 

 France, and Italy, which are now the chief producers of raw 

 silk, have thunder-storms and rains in summer, both very in- 

 jurious to the young worm. Besides, our winters are not so 

 cold, nor are our summers near the coast so hot, as at Lyons 

 and Milan, the centers of the chief silk districts of Europe. 

 The great drawback of that continent is, however, the bom- 

 byx plague, which attacks nearly all the worms hatched from 

 eggs laid there ; and for the last ten years the French and Ital- 



oO v 



ian silk-growers have been compelled to import eggs from re- 

 mote countries, getting a large part of their supply from 

 Japan, and of late years expending as much as $8,000,000 

 annually in these purchases. It is believed that California can 

 furnish all the eggs needed by Europe at greater protit than 

 any other country, and that in a few years she will be able to 

 work up her own raw silk. 



Silk worms have been bred here every year since 1860, but 

 the business has not yet reached a steady and solid basis. 

 Previous to 1867 it was experimental, but in that year an ex- 

 citement was caused by a State premium, offering large money 

 prizes for every plantation of mulberry trees, and for every 

 large lot of cocoons, in proportion to their number. No re- 

 striction was made in the matter of quality, and some persons 

 imagined that they could plant their trees as thick as in a 

 nursery, that they could get as much premium for the poorest 

 trivoltene cocoons after they had been hatched out, as for the 

 best French animals prepared for reeling. Under this stimu- 

 lus, the State produced 1,000,000 cocoons in 1868, 3,000,000 in 

 1869, and 12,000,000 in 1870, when the premium fever came 

 to an end. and the bubble burst. It was found that many of 

 the so-called mulberry plantations were mere nurseries, and 

 were besides planted in wet places, where the worms could 

 never thrive. As a consequence, a large proportion of them 



