256 [Senate 



in this region that has done any thing of consequence in silk, this 

 side of Woodstock, that I know of. I bought four thousand five 

 hundred trees two years ago, and put them on to about a quarter of 

 an acre. 1 commenced with feeding (a row hoed entirely) with about 

 45,000 worms ; 15,000 of these were the six weeks sulphur, and 

 the rest white mammoth. The sulphur appeared sickly, and all 

 nearly died before, or at the time of winding, so that I had no cocoons 

 from them worth any thing. The white mammoth were healthy, 

 but a greater part of them not having been exposed till the middle of 

 August, were about ready to wind, when a frost entirely destroyed 

 my leaves, and th«,y were in a measure lost. I had in all about four 

 bushels. They were kept in two rooms, in the second story of my 

 house, which were not very well ventilated, and the windows down 

 at night. The eggs were obtained of Mr. Ford, of Woodstock. 



This year I procured eggs of Mr. Dexter, of Claremont, N. H., 

 and fed about the same number. I had three or four thousand eggs — 

 white mammoth, and a few sulphur — of my own, both of which 

 kinds were very healthy, and wound well, and four other kinds of 

 Mr. Dexter — about 6 or 8,000 of the Rougwiermer, 15,000 of the 

 Nankin peanuts, 3,000 of the two-crop, making white cocoons, and 

 in color like the sulphur, and 10 or 12,000 of what Mr Dexter called 

 the four weeks sulphur, but were in reality the seven or eight weeks 

 sulphur. The sulphur appeared the best until after they commenced 

 winding, when on a sudden more than half of them died. There 

 were several others in this place who had about an eighth of an ounce 

 of these sulphur eggs of me, which I obtained of Mr. Dexter, and 

 they lost mostly all of theirs in the same way. There were three or 

 four individuals who had about this quantity. I could not account 

 for this failure in the sulphur, unless from defect in eggs, or chang- 

 ing them from a large garret chamber, after their fourth moulting, 

 to a room less large below, and less ventilated ; though my peanuts 

 and Rougwiermer were in the same room ; or from changing at that 

 time from the white mulberry leaves to the multicaulis leaves. Those 

 which I had raised of the peanuts, in the garret chamber, did the 

 best by far. 



It took about 200, !::pon an average, of the Rougwiermer cocoons 

 to make a pound -, 450 of the two-crop, white mammoth, and sul- 

 phur, and peanuts 300. I had feed enough for my worms both sea- 

 sons, from my 4,500 trees (multicaulis only). I cut them off at the 

 top of the ground last year, and sold the cuttings, and covered apart 

 with the furrow, and a part were not covered, and they generally 

 lived ; though those not covered, the best. I have between eight 

 and nine bushels of cocoons. Those which I pulled up last fall — 

 about five hundred — and planted last spring, did not come up well, 

 nor do half as well as the year before; but the cuttings about as 

 well. 



