292 [Senate 



4. Prefer the peanut. 



5. Use the multicaulis. 



6. Earl}' feeding is best. 



7. I attribute my own want of success in feeding (o the richness of 

 the soil on which my trees stand. [More probably the close shop. — J. 

 fl.B.] 



Questions addressed to manufacturers 1 answer thus : 



1. Two years. 



2. Sewings and twist. 



3. My operations have been small. lam now making ariangements 

 to manufacture one thousand pounds a year, with machinery of my 

 own invention. 



5. Two hands. 



6. American silk well reeled is best. 



Mrs. Harriet McLanahan, Philadelphia. Pa. — In 1841 the 

 interest manifested in the silk cause was very great; not only in raising 

 the cocoon?, but in finding a market for tliem when grown. Seeing 

 the necessity of a public Jilalvre, to which all could lesorf. and hav- 

 ing ihe knowledge (which I had obtained many years before, from 

 Europeans,) I was induced, for the good of the cause (and with some 

 persuasion,) to step out of private life, into public, and in July I opened 

 my present estabiislmaent ; and since which time I have kept three and 

 four reels (out of six) constantly running, until the expiration of the past 

 year, with which the bounty act on silk-growing' and reeling ceased 

 in this Slate; and I regret to say that the non-rcneiDul of the act seems 

 as far as I can judge, to have struck a chill upon the silk culture in tiiis 

 part of Peimsylvania. I have, however, kept my filature open, " hop- 

 ing still, in someihing onward." But I fear that my labors may ter- 

 minate ere long, for want of the raw material. 



In answer to your questions on growing silk, I would say — 



1st. In 1824, I fed, for amusement, 25,000 of the sulphur variety of 

 the silk-worm, with good success. I do not recollect a sick worm 

 among them. 



2d. The building occupied was a frame, rough -boarded, to keep off 

 the storm ; board swinging window-shutters, that were occasionally 

 closed, on the windward sides. Heat not regulated. Time of feeding, 

 May and June. 



3. Have never fed in an open shed. 



4lh. I greatly prefer the peanut variety, as producing most silk ; am 

 also partial (o the two-crop white. 



5th. In. the above crop, I used the white Italian mulberry. 



6th. I think early feeding more congenial with the nature of the 

 worm than late. Dame Nature is our best guide. 



7lh. I believe that failures often arise from endeavoring to raise too 

 many worms in the same building; and, also, from not giving them 

 proper food, at proper times. 



8ih. I have never tested the mulberry leaf for paper. 



9th. Have had no experience. 



