NEW ENGLAND FAR M E R , 



JUIiY 8, IS4 0. 



For llie N. E. Fiirmc'r. 



THE CULIURR OF SILK, &c. 



Mr Ediiok — I soikI you soiiie remarks in rela- 

 tion to tlip subject of silk — a subject whicli at this 

 time deeply cnj^affes the attention of a considerable 

 portion of the American people. They contain 

 some facts wliicli I consider highly important for 

 them to know at this particular period and season. 

 I have endeavored to recall their attention to a 

 Tery remarkable race of men : I mean the anglo- 

 Saxons, to which also the A^nerican people belong, 

 as a people preeminently calculated to succeed in 

 every enterprise which they once undertake. To 

 this I shall also subjoin a valuable article from the 

 National Intelligencer, which was sent to me 

 through the politeness of the Hon. VVm. S. Hast- 

 ings, member of C'ongress for this district. It con- 

 tains some account of the Now System of Prance, 

 or the system of M. Beauvais ; also of the system 

 pursued with such extraordinary success by the 

 Misses Reina, the daughters of Count Reina, at his 

 several establishments on his estates at Come, in 

 Lombardy. This system also, is eminently deserv- 

 ing oftrial in our climate. 



Very respectfully, yours, 



WILLIAM KENRICK. 



^onnnhim Hilt, J^Tewton, June 17, 1840. 



The race of tlie anglo-Saxons, to which we all 

 belong by direct descent, includes a people un- 

 doubtedly one of the most e.\traordinary known on 

 the records of time. This race seems destined to 

 overspread many vast countries and to cover terri- 

 tories nearly four times as extensive as the whole 

 of Europe. In this calculation! include New Hol- 

 land and luniierous other isles of the four oceans, 

 and also a very large proportion of North America ; 

 all destined to hold communion at some not 

 distant day, in but one common language : — a race 

 peculiarly distinguished for intelligence, for indus- 

 try and untiring perseverance — for energy and en- 

 terprise, and for their wonderful knowledge and 

 progress in agriculture and every useliil art. In 

 all these circumstances combined, few have ever 

 equalled and none have ever surpassed them. All 

 this is true of the anolo-Saxon race, hut only in 

 their own element or suitable climate: that climate 

 is comprehended only in that portion of the earth 

 which is situated between the equinoctial regions 

 and the polar circles. 



In those deligetful islands and tropical countries 

 where but a very iittle amount of clothing is re- 

 quired — where the earth jiroduces its fruits without 

 cultivation, and where even the bread is the spon- 

 taneous production of trees — where the labor of but 

 a few days is sufficient to provide f r the subsis- 

 tence of a whole year — where want and even the 

 fear of want can never come, few or none will vol- 

 untarily toil for great riches or for a great and 

 needless future store: none it is believed will thus 

 toil except by compulsion; none indeed butslaves. 

 In such a country and climati', the anglo-Saxon, 

 like an exotic plant, has usually been found to de- 

 generate in the second or third generation, during 

 which he loses, in a great degree, his native ener- 

 gy both of body and of mind : his fields of cotton, 

 of indigo, of cocao, ofcoflce, and of sugar, if cul- 

 tivated at all, must be cultivated by labors no', his 

 own; '• the fields of the ric'i man" being literally 

 "fertilised and refreshed by the toil and sweat of 

 the poor man," whom he has been enabled by his 



superior power to circumvent and to make his slave. 

 Thus the opium of India, which yields to the gov- 

 ernment of Britain an annual revenue of many mil- 

 lions sterling, is by Britons extorted from the poor 

 Hindoo, who is compelled throughout whole and 

 extensive districts of India to cultivate a certain 

 proportion of all his lands in opium; to sweat and 

 toil for no adequate compensation, and for the sole 

 benefit of his cruel taskmaster; to cultivate the in- 

 toxicatincr drug for the infamous purpose of beinir 

 smuiXLlled into China. '1 he infernal poison with 

 which the British novernment seems determined to 

 pollute and destroy a whole nation, and to sap the 

 Ibnndations of an ancient and mighty empire, is 

 not produced by the labors of the anglo-Saxons, 

 but extorted by them from a people whom they 

 have brought into subjection by the sword. 



Yet in England they cannot raise silk; their 

 iiostile climate forbids: the prevailing winds, blow- 

 ing as they do from the west or north, and directly 

 from the ocean, they carry from thence a cold and 

 humid atmosphere, loaded with aqueous vapors, 

 which for a considerable portion of the year ob- 

 scure the sun. Indian corn will not ripen in that 

 climate, neither will the leaf of the peach elaborate 

 Its juices sufficiently to mature its fruit ; nor will 

 the leaf of the mulberry mature its juices sufficient- 

 ly to become the healthful food of the silkworm, 

 from this same cause. Thus in the systematic and 

 careful experiments of Mr Felton at Birminjjham, 

 in J83!), none of the silkworms began to spin till 

 the end of eight weeks from the time of hatchihg, 

 and a great portion not until after the end of elev- 

 en weeks : of the former, •i5 to 50 per cent, die.l ; 

 and of the latter, or of those which lingered thus 

 long, 87 per cent, also died ; and the cocoons pro- 

 duced were small. 



We have many accounts of the unsuccessful at- 

 tempts to raise silkworms in England. In the fif- 

 ^ ''y I teenth volume of the Popular Encyclopmdia, which 

 volume was published in that country so lately as 

 18 59, and at page 127, we have the following re- 

 markable pa.^sage under the article Morus albit, 

 which I here quote : '-In this country (England) 

 the white mulberry in all its varieties, suffers a 

 good deal from our winters, but not so much as to 

 prevent its cultivation. Some years ago an at- 

 tempt was made to introduce it, and the rearing of 

 silkworms into Great Britain, but the attempt fiiil- 

 ed, owing partly to unskilful management, hot 

 more to the aofl, juicy condition of the leaves in tliis 

 damp ctininte, which rendered t'lem unfit for the 

 food of the silkworm." 



In all the north and west of France, fi-oni the 

 points where Indian corn ceases to be a certain 

 crop, we are assured that they usually in ordinary 

 cultnri! lose from 40to GO per cent, of the silkworms 

 a;id without doubt from these same and no other 

 causes. Not so in our own climate and country, 

 and for reasons which I shall now attempt to ex- 

 plain. Our serene skies and days of genial heat 

 and of sunshine are not only highly favorable to 

 the health of the silkworm, but they serve also suf- 

 ficiently and completely to mature the juices of the 

 leaf of the iinilberry in all its varieties, and to con- 

 vert them into the most healthy as well as nutri- 

 tious food, so that losses from disease from this 

 cause can never come. Our prevailing winds for 

 about three fourths of the year are also from the 

 westward, but, coming as they do over a vast ex- 

 tent of territory, they are dry and salubrious, they 

 always bring fair weather, they repel the cold and 

 foggy atmosphere and moisture of tiie ocean. These 



prevailing winds of the middle latitudes it is well 

 known, carry ship? across the ocean and to the 

 coasts of Europe in a far less period of time than 

 they can ever return, either by the same or by any 

 other route. These winds of the middle latitudes 

 are the counter-currents of those same winds called 

 trade icinds, wi.ich, following in the direct course 

 of a vertical sun, blow unceasingly in the contrary 

 direction and in all seasons within the tropics. 



In "Graham's India" we are informed that the 

 high table lands of the Deccan, situated beyond the 

 extensive barrier of hills called the western Ghauts, 

 offer advantages very far superior to those of the 

 low sultry plains of Bengal, or of almost any other 

 country, for the cultivation of the white mulberry 

 and the rearing of the silkworms. In Italy it is 

 deemed unsafe to strip the leaves from the trees 

 more than once for ilie worms, which are slow in 

 progress in that climrite, go that they can have only 

 one crop of silk in the'year. In the Deccan the 

 mnlberry trees thrive with the most surprising lu.K- 

 nriance, and being in perpetual verdure may be de- 

 prived of their leaves six times in the year, and 

 this without injury to them, provided a few leaves 

 are allowed to remain at the top of the branches. 

 So rapid is the progress of vegetation in that coun- 

 try, that fresh leaves soon burst forth to supply the 

 place of those which have been removed. The 

 silkworm is so rapid in its operations, that six crops 

 of silk in the year can with ease be obtained. The 

 labor of the Hindus is also much lower than in 

 Europe. In Italy they are obliged to have recourse 

 to stoves and to warm currents of air, both for the 

 purposes of hatching the ogi:-^ and of rearing the 

 worms in their natural temperature. Prom sudden 

 cluinges of atmosphere also, the insect is in Italy 

 liable to disease. In the Deccan the insect in this 

 respect requires no artificial aid. The silkworm in 

 all its varieties, from the copious transpiration of 

 the watery part of the leaf through tlie pores of its 

 body, requires a dry, warm, and equable tenipera- 

 turo to carry off the insensible perspiration, and 

 particularly when vast numbers are congregated in 

 the same apartment. The climate of the Deccan, 

 from its great elevation, from the mildness ol its 

 rains, from its temperature, dryness and equability, 

 is the most congenial to the silkworm of any in the 

 world; yet notwitlistanding tliese decided advanta- 

 ges for the cultivation of silk in the Deccan, it has 

 been hitherto neglected ; while in Italy, with all 

 its natural disadvantages, silk has long been culti- 

 vated, and is become the grand source of the nation- 

 al wealth. 



Tlius it is, that in those countries where nature 

 seems to have done every thing, neither the anglo- 

 Saxou or any other peo|)le will voluntarily labor be- 

 yond the needful wants of today. Nor can the arts 

 and manufactures and the agriculture of our own 

 country or of Britain, so unrivalled, the cutlery, the 

 cotton or the wool, be transplanted to those coun- 

 tries with even any hope of success. In our own 

 country and in some of the States, we have also ex- 

 tensive establishments, not only of cutlery but of 

 jewelry, and vast printing establishments of sian- 

 dard works, wliich require a great amount of manual 

 labor, yet neither can these nor those other manu- 

 factures be transplanted from our ov.'n climate to 

 those intertropical countries where from the despot- 

 ic character of their governments and the insecurity 

 of all property, or from the density of their popula- 

 tion and the scarcity or monopoly of their lands, or 

 from the enervating nature of their climate and the 

 inefficiency of the people, labor is nominally so 



