220 



From the American Farmer. 



SILK. 



Mr Skinner, Baltimore, Jan. 1S29. 



I Jo not know how I can serve the cause of the 

 a\]k ctiUure more efTectiuilly, tlian liy suggesting 

 the i)uhhcation in ttie Fiunier of the accompany- 

 ing letter from Dr Millington, of Missouri. It is, 

 iu my o|iinion, the very hest article yet published 

 on this interesting suliject. My experience bears 

 testimony to the correctness of all Dr Millington's 

 remarks, and enables me to say with contiil-nce, 

 that our farmers may safely take the artic-le as 

 their guide in the management of silk worms. — 

 Dr Millington is a practical scientific agricultur- 

 ist, and has made silk one of the principal objects 

 of his attention for several years, and may there- 

 fore be depended on with more cotifidcnce than 

 90G merely versed in the theory of his subject. 

 Yours respecttully, 



GIDEON B. SMITH. 



Dear Sir, 



St Charles, July 4, 1828. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



Q. 2. Do you feed on the wild black mulberry, 

 or on the Italian white, or both ? 



.1. 1 have fed njy worms ])rinci])ally on our 

 indigenous red mulberry, (a variety very com- 

 mon here, wiiich bears black fruit,) but not so 

 much by choice as out of necessity. I have but 

 few white iiuilherry trees old enough to furnish 

 food for silk worms ; yet these few trees have en- 

 abled me to try several e.xperinionts, to ascertain 

 which is most valuable. The result of these ex- 

 IJerimciits has convinced me, that although the 

 leaves of the white mulberry may not make the 

 worms grow larger, they will fill their silk vessels 

 fuller with the silk material, than oiu' wild kind. 

 This is shown by the fact, that worms fed on the 

 white mulberry, shrink less before they begin to 

 spin ; and they spin larger cocoons, composed of 

 a coarser and stronger fibre, with less gum than 

 those worms which are fed on the wild mulberry. 

 The silk made from our wild mulberry has often 

 been admired for the fineness of its fibre ; but this 

 fineness, with the gum attached to it, certainly 

 renders it more difficult to i-cel, and, in my opiu- 



I have had the pleasure to receive your recent 1 ion, does not add to its value after it is reeled. -I 



letter, and will answer the rpieries it contains. I 

 embrace the first leisure hour I have had since I 

 received it, which hap]iens to be the day on which 

 we celebrate our independence. While others 

 are rejoicing for tlie independence already gain- 

 ed, I will with greater jileasure attempt to aid you 

 in your endeavor to show, that we ought to be, 

 and can easily become more independent, by 

 throwing otT our depeudenee on other countries 

 for silk and silken gooils. Before I commence my 

 answers, I will inform you that my silk raising 

 has been mostly experimental. I commenced 

 these ex])eriments, to ascertain whether there was 

 a probaljility that the silk raising business would 

 be sufficiently profitable to justify going to the ex- 

 pense of making a large mulberry orchard ; and 

 since I was convinced it would, I have continued 

 these experiments for the better understanding of 

 the business. I have raised one crop of silk 

 worrits, all hatched v/ithin three days, which made 

 two hundred and thirty-one pounds of cocoons ; 

 and another crop which made seventy-throe 

 pounds. My other crops have been smaller.r — 

 You will therefore understand some of my ans- 

 wers to your queries as more properly stating what 

 I have (lone, and am doing, hij tcay of experiment, 

 and as u'kat I intended to do on a larger scale for 

 profit, as soon as my young nndberry trees will 

 furnish a sufficiency of food. 



Qiiery first. How do you hatch your eggs, and 

 manage your worms .-' 



Answer. I hatch them without artificial heal. 

 When the eggs are kept in a room where no fire 

 is used, they will seldom hatch before the nndber- 

 ry trees will furnish food. But I generally keep 

 them in a cool place, until near the time I shall 

 want young worms, wli^n the eggs are placed in 

 the feeding room, where they hatch within from 

 five to ten days. The eggs are kept on the sheets 

 of paper as they are laid by the moths. When 

 the eggs begin to hatch, the sheets of paper are 

 spread on tables or shelves, and young tender 

 mulherry leaves are placed near the hatching 

 worms. The worms attach themselves to these 

 leaves as fast as they come out, and are carefully 

 removed every evening to the feeding shelves. / 

 keep each day's hatching by itself, and never, at any 

 Stage of their existence, mix together on the same shelf 

 warms of different ages. 



only mean to be understood to say, that I consid 

 er that there is an inconsiderable ditiercnce be- 

 tween the two kinds, and the white is entitled to 

 the preference. 



Q. 3. On what sized trees, and in what age, 

 anil state of the foliage, do you gather for your 

 worms ? 



./?. While the worms arc young, I feed with 

 the most tender leaves. These may be found 

 most plentifully on young trees. They, however, 

 may he procured from the fresh growing shoots of 

 old trees. As the worms increase in age, I give 

 them older leaves, or rather old and young gath- 

 ered promiscuously, until after their last cast, when 

 I aim to t'i:c(\ them wholly, if they can be conven- 

 iently procured, with full grown leaves, taken 

 from trees of some age. As it regards the trees, 

 after they are three years old, they may be mod- 

 erately picked without injury. Very close pick- 

 ing, and that frequently repeated, will check thcii' 

 growth ; but when the growth of the tree is not 

 an object, this may be repeated several times, dur- 

 ing the same summer, and a new foliage will im- 

 mediately succeed the loss of the old. 



Q. 4. How do you manage your worms while 

 in a state of feeding. 



.4. I keep the worms on shelves, or on light 

 frames, three and a half feet square, filled with 

 basket splits, and then covered with some kind of 

 strong paper. These are put up in form of 

 shelves. I aim to give the worms at all times as 

 much food as they will eat, and never give it in 

 less than three meals, often in six or eight meals 

 a day. I have the litter removed from them at 

 least often enough to prevent its becoming mouldy 

 or offensive. When the weather is warm, they 

 have a free circulation of air. 



I have sometimes set them to spinning on 

 hedges, erected according to the French and Ital- 

 ian mode ; but have found it more convenient to 

 use oak bushes, having large leaves, and which 

 should be cut three or four weeks before wanted, 

 that the leaves may become dry and curled. 



Q. 5. Is it known that the silk worm will feed 

 on any thing beside the mulberry, so as to make 

 cocoons ? 



A. It is said that the silk worm will feed on the 

 dandelion. I know it will feed on lettuce, when 

 it cannot get better food. The knowledge of this 



.Ian. 30, 1829. 



fact is often useful to silk raisers. When mulber- 

 ry leaves fail, by frost or otherwise, lettuce may 

 be fed to young worms until mulben-y leaves can 

 be i)rocured. Probably, there is no valuable sub- 

 stitute for the mulberry leaf, which is not much 

 to he regretted, as few trees are more easily rais- 

 ed, ;uid furnish leaves sooner, and more abundant- 

 ly, than the mulherry. 



Q. G. What process do you follow, in prepar- 

 ing the cocoons, and in preparing the eggs for the 

 coming year, and how often do you hatch feeding 

 worms in the same year .' 



Jl. Such part of my cocoons as cannot be reel- 

 ed immediately, and are not wanted for seed, I 

 prepare for kee|!ing, by exposing them rojicatedly 

 to the heat of the mid-day sun. This will c er- 

 tiiinly kill the chrysalis, contained v/ithin the co- 

 coon. But if cloudy weather prevents the use of 

 these means, up to near the time the moths are 

 expected out, I eitlicr steam or bake them in the 

 manner commonly recommended in the several 

 treatises on silk raising. But I [irefer the sun. — 

 It leaves the cocoons better and liandsomer. My 

 method is to expose them to the sun, thinly spread 

 on plank, sheets, or blankets. If the cocoons are 

 to be kept a long time, I continue frequently to 

 expose them to the sun, to dry the dead insect 

 contained within them. Those cocoons selected 

 for seed, are kept where most convenient, until 

 the moths begin to come from them. I put the 

 moths on sheets of jiaper, which are spread in 

 boxes on shelves, the floor, or where most con- 

 venient, on which they lay their eggs. On each 

 sheet of paper containing eggs, I write the day 

 and month they were laid, then roll them loosely 

 together, and keej) them either in a cool room or 

 celhr, until wanted the next season. A cool cel- 

 lar will .seldom kcc[) the eggs from hatching later 

 than until about the first of June the following 

 year. Such eggs as I wish to keep later, I re- 

 move early in the sj)ring into a dry and cool place 

 in an 'ire house. I cannot say certainly, Jiow 

 often I should wish to have fresh croiis of worms 

 hatched, were I doing business more extensively; 

 but probably every six or eight days through the 

 summer. Lust year I had silk worms constantly 

 in feeding from the 20th of April until after the 

 20th of October. 



There are considerable advantages in having 

 the worms of several different ages in the same 

 establishment. One advantage is, the same room 

 and siielves will hold abundantly more worms at 

 the same time, without being crowded. A room 

 and shelves which will barely accommodate one 

 hundred thousand full grown worms, will better 

 accommodate two hundred and fifty thousand, 

 consisting of four or five different ages, provided 

 each age or |)arcel are about equal in number, 

 anil are hatched at about seven or eight days 

 apart. Another advantage is the same number 

 of hands, with the same quantity of labor, will 

 make more silk, and do it with less trouble and 

 perplexity, than when the whole crop of worms 

 are of the same age and all spin at the same time. 

 When silk worms are young, they are extremely 

 small, and they require but htlle room, little food, 

 and little attention. All the food they consl^me,, 

 up to the time they are sixteen days old, woidd 

 not make more than one meal for them when full 

 grown : consequently, when the whole crop of 

 worms are of the same age, there is at first but 

 little to do ; but for a few of the last days they 

 will eat voraciously, must all be removed and 



