Ko. 124.] 247 



could produce cocoons for sale at the prices offered at the State Prison at 



Auburn. 



In the spring of 1842, I planted 2,000 multicaulis trees, which 1 

 brought from Ohio, in rows six feet apart, and trees two feet apart in 

 the row, I then took limbs from the same and placed them so the ends 

 touched, in drills the same distance apart, 6 feet. In the fall I had 

 about ten thousand in all, on one and a half acres. I let them stand 

 as they were, without any protection. I believe every tree sprouted 

 last spring, and the 10th of June, the young shoots were killed to the 

 old wood by frost. They recovered, grew rapidly, and have matured 

 their wood nearly to the top, and are now shedding their leaves with- 

 out frost Many of them are six feet high. I know them to be as 

 hardy as the white, and the finest cocoons I ever saw^ were produced by 

 worms fed wholly on multicaulis, by Mr. Clapp, Dr. Matthews, and 

 others, at Painesville, Ohio, If I could not account for my bad suc- 

 cess I should be discouraged, 



AVith a cocoonery in the midst of my trees, I believe I can attend 

 two hundred thousand worms from the middle of May, to the middle 

 of September, with children to pick and bring in the leaves. 



When we see multicaulis trees from limbs planted in May, (of course 

 do not strike root and begin to grow till June,) withstand such a winter 

 as 1842-3, and this in the north of Herkimer Co., we may ask what 

 part of our country cannot produce silk. 



Samuel Barrett, French Creek, Lewis Co., Va. — I have just 

 receiveil your Silk Circular. I perused it with a high degree of pleasure, 

 having always been a warm advocate of the silk cause. Although my 

 operations have been small, as you will perceive, I cheerfully contribute 

 my mite to promote the great object you have in view. In answer to 

 first question. '= How long have you fed worms," &c., I will say, I 

 have fed worms, or attempted to feed them for three years. June, 

 1841, I received by mail one ounce of eggs from Gideon B. Smith, of 

 Baltimore, editor of the American Silk Journal. They were of the 

 variety which he called the Mirable Jaunes, and which he pronounced 

 the best kind. I fed in the loft of a log building, with only one win- 

 dow, and a door on the same side of the room. The room was other- 

 wise tolerably tight. Underneatii was a cooking-stove daily used in 

 cooking for the family. This, together with the extremely warm 

 weather, or some other cause, produced unhealthinessin the worms, and 

 I lost the most of them. The close manner in which they were kept 

 was sufficient, in my own mind, to account for this result. In 1S42, 

 I lost all my eggs in the spring, by the rats unluckily getting at them. 

 I then got some of a neighbor who had kept them in a cellar till April 

 The weather, for some time previous, had been extremely warm ; 

 wishing to retard their hatching, I put them into a deep well and kept 

 them till July. I brought them out to hatch but they would not, they 

 had been too far matured. I could get no more that season. The pre- 

 sent year I could not obtain any eggs in the early part of the season, 

 except a few which 1 obtained from Doct. Stebbins, Northampton, Mass. 



