23a Senate 



have found the early part of the season better than the last for feed- 

 ing. Of the different varieties of silk-worm, I consider the large 

 Nankin peanut preferable to any other with which I am acquainted. 

 I use the leaves of the multicaulis tree exclusively for feeding, of 

 which I have about three acres. The trees are cut down within 

 about two inches of the ground in the spring; have received no mate- 

 rial injury from the winter, and many of them have grown the past 

 season to the height of seven and a half feet. 



Samuel Wagner, York, Pa. — I have for two or three years been 

 engaged, in a small way, in testing the practicability of introducing 

 the silk culture in this country. I have a growing interest and an in- 

 creased confidence in the business. I should esteem it a great favor 

 to receive a copy of the proceedings of the Silk Convention. The 

 small number of persons who engaged in the silk culture, in this State, 

 without any reference to a mulberry tree speculation, are, I believe, 

 very generally persevering in their enterprise, though the with- 

 drawal of the Slate bounty operates unfavorably in some cases. 



O. G. Cathcart, Williamsburgh, Mass. — I commenced feeding 

 silk-worms with no information upon the subject except that obtain- 

 ed by reading, and have prosecuted it as a part of domestic industry. 



Have fed worms six years, and have been so far successful that I 

 have been induced to increase my stock of trees and worms yearly. 



The season past have fed worms enough to make 49 pounds of co- 

 coons, from which my wife has reeled the silk on the common reel, 

 and shall have ten or twelve hundred skeins of sewing silk ; have 

 made sewing silk of all that we have raised from year to year, and 

 sell it either for cash or in exchange for other goods, as readily as 

 any product of the farm. Am satisfied that the cultivation of silk, as 

 a branch of family industry, is profitable, and might be made more 

 profitable to a family of children and youth, than most business, that 

 they now follow. Children and youth can pick leaves and feed 

 worms ; the mother and daughters can convert the cocoons into raw 

 silk, sewing silk, hose, gloves, laces, &c.; pierced cocoons and floss 

 into various articles. 



Four years I fed in a tightly finished room, that was well aired in 

 good weather, and closed in bad, and the two years past in an out- 

 house singly boarded, with a loose floor, and standing high from the 

 ground, exposed to a free circulation of air in all weathers, and the 

 worms have been decidedly more healthy these last seasons than they 

 wpre before. 



Think the peanut variety is to be preferred. 



Have tried a number of kinds of trees; like the Canton best, and 

 consider large leaved Alpines good, especially to feed in the last age. 



Cut my trees down in the spring, except a few to commence feed- 



