253 



NF:W ENGLAND FARMER, 



Feb. 



1832. 



®®sasa;wsrii>s4iaa©srsa 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dedham, Ms. Feb. 17lh, 1832. 

 Deau S(R,— Inclosed is a letter to me from Wm. 

 Kohert Prince, Esq. and my reply, which I send you for 

 publication in your valuable paper. Should you, upon 

 perusal, think them worth spreading before the public, 

 you will much oblige your humble servant, by letting 

 them appear in your next paper. 

 Very respectfully. 



Your obliged friend and Servant, J. H. COBB. 

 To the Editor of .V. E. Farmer. 



Lin. Hot. GarJen, Dec. 15, 1831. 



J. II. Cobb, Esq. 



Sir,— Your fiivor of 20th October, in reply to 

 mine of 15th, came to haud on 13th ult. and I am 

 pleased to find that the explanation made and 

 your subsequent examinations, have produced 

 such conviction on your mind, as to authorize the 

 remark therein, that you are satisfied that we 

 ' have the real Morits mxiUicaulis and were thejirst 

 persons loho sent it into Massachtisdts.' The cause 

 of your misapprehension we now fully under- 

 stand, and we feel also assured that you will ren- 

 der justice to our exertions to preserve an unde- 

 viating accuracy. 



As we have been co-laborers in the same cause 

 with yourself, I avail myself of the present occa- 

 sion to make some comments on the subject. In 

 the years 1787 and 88, the present Wm. Prince, 

 sen. raised an immense number of silk worms 

 and made various experiments in regard thereto, 

 and in 1789 he had silk gloves manufactured at 

 Philadelphia. The worms being well fed and 

 attended to, spun their cocoons in twentytwo 

 days and they were of the largest size. The silk, 

 when prepared for the loom and boiled in soap- 

 suds made from the white soap, was perfectly 

 white and glossy, and proved very strong. He 

 constructed a reel of pasteboard, to wind two 

 skeins on at a time ; twelve of the silk worms 

 threads formed one thread of silk for each skein, 

 which passing through a wire with two holes or 

 rings, the wire being connected with the axle of 

 the" wheel, causes the thread to be wound in a 

 zinzag manner upon the reel. The silk, after 

 being doubled and twisted, contained 144 of the 

 natural threads; that number being requisite to 

 form a thread coarse enough to be woven by the 

 finest loom for stockings and gloves, then in Phil- 

 adelphia, according to a sample sent by the 

 weaver. 



In the spring of 1826, when the subject of silk 

 culture created an universal interest among our 

 citizens, being myself desirous to concentrate every 

 information possible, relative thereto, I sent to 

 France for every pubUcation connected with the 

 subject ; and in return, received eighteen distinct 

 works. The Hon. Richard Hush, then Secretary 

 of the Treasury, being called upon about that pe- 

 riod by Congress, to prepare a complete Manual 

 upon that subject — my father, Mr Wm. Prince, 

 had the satisfaction of replying to a number of 

 communications from him and Dr Mease, and of 

 imparting the informaton desired from him in the 

 ' progress of that work ; and some of the publica- 

 tions which I had imported, were also loaned tliem 

 at thpir particular request, they not being obtain- 

 able elsewhere. I ant happy also to add that our 



found them useful to him in the course of his sci- 

 entific elucidations, and even at the present day 

 I beUeve duplicates of some of them are not to be 

 found in our country. 



The same sentiment which dictated the impor- 

 tation of books, influenced me to import all the 

 requisite trees ; and I forthwith ordered from 

 France, Italy and elsewhere, every variety of the 

 Mulberry, used for feeding silk worms. The re- 

 sult was, that the Morns multicaulis, notv so called, 

 was comprised in those importations under arioth- 

 er name, and its culture had already been consid- 

 erably extended in our nurseries, before it had 

 received its present title or its superiority had been 

 made known. 



Wishing to disseminate these new varieties, I 

 freely presented them to those interested in the 

 silk culture, and among others, to Gideon B. 

 Smith, Esq. editor of the American Farmer, and 

 if I mistake not, his tree of the Morus mtdticaulis, 

 which is only one of the ^rog-e?Hy from my original 

 trees, was sent him before the same kind had been 

 imported by any other person. That gentleman 

 recently stated to me, that he had near 150 fine 

 trees which he had raised from the single one of 

 the M. multicaulis, which I had sent him, and 

 that he had also reared a number from the other 

 varieties. I mention these facts merely to show 

 that we have not been guilty of culpable itidifFer- 

 ence to the great national object. 



Supposing it may also be satisfactory to you to 

 test the respective merits of the new varieties, I 

 herewith transmit you six trees, each one of a 

 distinct kind, as per invoice annexed ; and as no 

 one can feel a more ardent desire for the develop- 

 ment of our country's resources, and for the 

 attainment of a perfect national independence, than 

 my father and self, no one will exult more at 

 that ample success, which we feel confident will 

 consummate the exertions which you and others 

 are making, to advance the silk culture. 

 Very respectfully, 



WM. ROBERT PRINCE. 



22, arose from misapprehension and from the 

 species not being sutficiently designated among the 

 great variety in your catalogue ; and on reference 

 tonhe invoice sent me, I find that the trees sent 

 are not therein designated as the Morus mnlticanlis, 

 but as the Broad leaved Chinese Mulbcrn/, by which 

 I understood to be meant the Morus multicaulis, i 

 but it appears that there are more varieties of the ■ 

 broad leaved Chinese mulberry, than I was ac- 

 quainted with. I saw the trees from your original 

 stock, in the garden of Gideon B. Smith, Esq. of ■ 

 Baltimore, during the last sunmier. I also saw, 

 as I suppose, some of the books which you had 

 the liberality to import and put into the hands of 

 the most eminent and respectable Dr Pascalis. 

 The iustructious contained in them for rearing 

 silk insects, are not well calculated for our coim- 

 try, though they furnish much valuable information. 

 I regret that Mr Wm. Prince, senior, your re- 

 spected father, did not persevere in his patriotic 

 labors in the culture of silk ; although for his 

 actual efforts he must be considered a benefactor 

 to his country. I fear it will be a great while 

 before we shall raise silk enough for home con- 

 sumption. I am obliged to use the China silk 

 chiefly in my maimfactory ; it is running- on my 

 spindles now. Instead of pursuing the old fash- 

 ioned %vay, of twisting one thread at a time, I have . 

 a throicsting milt of 1G4 spindles, and am now 

 throwing silk oft" from lU to 20 cocoons. 



I hope to be able to supply my mill altogether 

 from American silk in a few years, but the art of 

 filature is so imperfect at present that I cannot 

 dri)end upon it, but use chiefly foreign raw silk. 



Wishing you all success in the development of 

 horticultural resources, and particularly in the 

 culture of the vine and mulberry, 



I remain, respectfully, 



Y'our friend and servant, J. H. COBB. 



Dedham, .Ms. Dec. 28, 183). 



Wm. R. Prince, Esq. 



Sir, — Y'ours of the 15th inst. was received sev- 

 eral days since and is now before me ; various en- 

 gagements have prevented me from giving a more 

 prompt reply. I have received, with great satis- 

 faction and pleasure, the trees which you have 

 sent, consisting of six different varieties of the 

 Mulberry, according lo the invoice, viz. 



1 Morus multicaulis. 



2 " constantinopolitana rozea. 



3 " tartarica. 



4 " lucida lobata. 



5 " laciniata. 



6 " macrophylla. 

 I have no doubt that upon further acquaintance 



with them, important advantages will result. It 

 is by no means yet fully ascertained, what variety 

 of the white mulberry will best suit the different 

 pans of our extensive country, and it is only from 

 repeated experiments and careful observations, 

 that the most useful knowledge m the arts is to be 

 obtained. I know of but few to whom greater 

 credit than yourself is due, for early attention and 

 accm-atc observation in the important departments 

 of botany and horticulture. 



I am satisfied that the mistake, as regards the 

 intelligent fellow citizen, Dr Felix Pascalis, has trees sent me and mentioned in my Manual, page 



CULTURE OF RUTA BAGA, &c. 



Portsmouth, N. H. Feb. lOlh, 1832. 

 To the Editor of tlio N. Iv. Fanner. 



Sir, — Observing in your paper some remarks 

 upon the culture of Ruta Baga, and having made 

 an experiment in a small way upon it myself, the 

 past summer, I will give you the results of my 

 experience, and some of my ideas upon the sub- 

 ject. I most earnestly hope tliat nothing which I 

 say, will occasion an unfiiendly feeling on the 

 part of any ono ; it being my disposition and de- 

 termination to consider every one engaged in in- 

 creasing the e.xtent and precision of our agricultu- 

 ral knowledge, as a fellow-laborer in the cause of 

 truth. 



The autumn before last, I took up, amongst 

 others, a ])iece of land that had not been ploughed 

 for some years, and was covered in some places 

 with a strong red-top sward, in others with a beg- 

 garly growth of clover, and in some places with al- 

 most nothing ; chiefly awarm, dry and rather good 

 gravelly loam than otherwise, and the rest of a 

 soft, reddish sandy one ; like most of the land 

 cultivated at present, of very bad reputation. The 

 cuiTent in this quarter is in favor, either of the 

 deep, strong clays, which are not uncommon in 

 this vicinity, and which grow for several years, 

 with very high manuring, fair crops of timothy ; 

 but neither potatoes, Indian corn, nor anything 

 else we grow, which is adapted to the really rich 

 land, of which there is also abundance. 



This patch I ploughed in autumn to get it out 



