VOL. XIV. NO. 5. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL 



35 



tures. It sells, liowijver, niul tlie inaimfaotiirers 

 know how to employ it. — It must be added, that 

 the Fioiicli and Italian female reelers perform 

 tlicir work mechanically, and are, in other re- 

 spects grossly ignorant : few of them, if any, know- 

 ing even how to read and write. Our American 

 women will prove themselves fur superior in 

 every respect, and their domestie filatures will 

 produce ])erfect silk, because they will not have 

 received instruction through their great-grand- 

 mothers, before the art was improved as it is 

 now. 



In this country there should he both great and 

 small or domestic filatures ; the former will be 

 the depositories of all the improvements in the 

 art ; the latter will contribute to the use of fam- 

 ilies, and there is no danger of their being an ex- 

 cess of the article in the market. There must be 

 filatures of all sizes and dimensions, according to 

 the means of those who undertake them. Full and 

 free competition can alone ensure success. 



SCPERIORITT OF AMERICAN SILK. 



M. D'Homergue has been the first to discover 

 the great superiority of American silk over that of 

 any other country, and ascertained the fact, that, 

 while in France it requires twelve pounds of co- 

 coons to produce one pound of raw silk, eight 

 pounds will in this country, be anijdy sufEcient to 

 produce the same quantity. Experiments made 

 long since in Georgia, it is true had given the 

 same result, but they were insulated and had ex- 

 cited no particular attention. In the Manual, pub- 

 lished in 1828, under the authority of the House 

 of Representatives of the United States, the 

 author (pages 105, 106) has inserted those exper- 

 iments in detail, as extracted from the manuscript 

 of the late Col. Habersham, and has subjoined 

 similar ones made in France and Italy, with their 

 results, extracted from various foreign writers, and 

 those results, in general correspond with the state- 

 ment of M. D'Homergue ; but neither the author 

 nor any body else, appears to have perceived the 

 great advantages of American silk overall others, 

 although the facts were before theit eyes. The 

 reason is, that it required a practical man to make 

 the important discovery; one well acquainted 

 with the properties of foreign silks, and enabled 

 by his own experience, to take a clear compara- 

 tive view of them with our own, and decide on 

 both. * 



The following " General Directions to Ameri- 

 can Planters and Farmers for the Raising of silk 

 worms by J. D'Homergue" are copied from the 

 work above quoted. 



I. OF THE EGGS OF SILK WORMS. 



The eggs of silk worms exactly resemble in 

 iheir appearance and color the seeds of the pop 



chase or receive from others the eggs of silk worms 

 will do well to observe this direction, although the 

 eggd may have been washed by those who raised 

 them, as many of them may have perished by 

 dampness, excessive heat or want of care. 



After the eggs have been washed, they must be 

 dried by exposure to cool and dry air. As the 

 eggs are produced in the month of .luly, which is a 

 hot month, they must be ke|)t in some cool place 

 until the proper season for hatching them, which is 

 in May. No degree of cold can hurt them, provid- 

 ed they do not freeze. If they are purchased and 

 received in the hot season, they must be dried in 

 the sun after being washed, but in the cool of the 

 morning or evening, when the air is perfectly dry, 

 and the dew is not falling. The manner of pre- 

 serving them will be mentioned hereafter. 



II. OF HATCHING THE EGGS. 



The general rule in Europe is to put the worms' 

 eggs to hatch as soon as the mulberry trees begin 

 to bud. The tree here spoken of is the Italian 

 white mulberry* (the proper food of silk worms) 

 which should be every where extensively planted. 

 It buds generally about the 11th of May. Ten 

 days afterwards, say about the 20th, they put forth 

 their leaves. These ten days in France are em- 

 ployed in hatching the eggs, by exposing them to 

 a heat which is graduated by means of stoves and 

 thermometers. But in this country nature has 

 done everything, and I can see as yet no need of 

 recurring to art. The worms' eggs may then 

 here be put to hatch when the leaves begin, or are 

 ready to appear. I think in this country this hap- 

 pens about the 21st of May, when the sun passes 

 from Taurus to Gemini. If, however, by some 

 change in the temperature, the mulberry trees 

 should put forth their leaves later than usual, the 

 time of hatching should be delayed proportional- 

 ly. But I am inclined to think that that but seldom 

 happens in this country. 



The manner of putting the eggs to hatch is as 

 follows. They should be put in a pasteboard or 

 wooden box, not covered at the top, and the sides 

 not more than half an inch high, so that the 

 worms, when hatched, may easily crawl out as 

 will be presently mentioned. The size of the box 

 should be suited to the quantity of eggs to be 

 hatched, so that they be not on the top of one 

 another. The box should then be covered with 

 paper, perforated with holes of the size of a 

 large pin's head, so that the worms when hatched 

 may easily pass through them. I have foimd that 

 the worms in this country, as far as my experience 

 goes, are generally hatched in three days after 

 being put into the box. When they are 

 near coming out, young mulberry leaves should 

 be j)ut on the top of the box, leaving spaces. 

 The worms, as soon as hatched will smell these 



that ;d)out the same period it does not often fell 

 below 80 degrees, particularly in the south. The 

 European writers have taken great pains to grad- 

 uate the heat during the ten days which are em- 

 ployed in those countries for hatching' worms' 

 cgf?^. All these precautions do not apjiear neces- 

 sary in this country. 



Fresh Fruit. — Looking from our window 

 upon the bright verdure of the beautiful ewpla- 

 nadeof the College Orcen, one of those slovenly 

 unmusical boys who throng the streets as venderB 

 of fruit, came singing along in truly asinine tones, 

 "Strawberries, stra-w-berries, st-r-a-wber-r-ries" 

 until he reached the gate, which he entered, and 

 seated himself and merchandise upon the velvet 

 turf. It appeared that by long carrying in the 

 streets, the fruit had settled down in his little 

 thimble baskets, until they were not quite so full 

 as could be desired, and his object was to display 

 heaping measures, without anv increase of quan- 

 tity. 



Taking off his old greasy hat, thereupon he 

 deliberately emptied his baskets of strawberries 

 into it; picked out the decayed ones and ate 

 them ; and then refilled the baskets from the hat 

 aforesaid, placing green leaves at the bottom of 

 the baskets, to fill up, and covering them with the 

 same, plucked fresh and fair from the foliage of 

 the college grounds. Having prepared them to 

 his liking, he replaced his hat upon his 

 pate, and again sallied forth, crying as before, 

 " St-r-a-w-be-rries, straw-b-er-r-i-e-s — here they 

 go." — A. York Commercial. 



py. Hence those seeds are sometimes sold in leaves, crawl up to them through the holes in 



Euroi)e by dishonest men as silk worm's eggs, or 

 mixed with them. But it is easy to detect the 

 fraud, and at the same time to sejiarate the good 

 or live eggs from the bad ones. The eggs must be 

 washed in jiure water ; all that are good will so to 

 the bottom, and the bad ones will swim. This 

 separation ought to be made by any one who pur- 

 chases worms' eggs. It is also necessary to keep 

 them clean, and free them by washing from a kind 

 of gum which adheres to them. Those who pur- 



* Report of the Committee on Agriculture to 

 House of Representatives in Congress. 



the 



the 



paper cover, and begin feeding. Then the leaves 

 covered with worms, are gently taken up, and laid 

 on a table or hurdle that has been prepared to re- 

 ceive thera. 



The eggs should be put to hatch in a warm 

 jilace. The heat should be at least 80 degrees 

 Fahrenheit. When I arrived in this city [Wash- 

 ington] on the 18th of May the thermometer was 

 82i degrees within doors. It, is therefore, probable 



* At the time when this was published the Chinese 

 Mulberry had not been introduced into this country. 



Interesting to Farmers. — The Grub Worm and 

 its devastations upon fruit trees are well known 

 to farmers in this vicinity. These worms commit 

 their depredations by boring into the roots around 

 the trunk near the surface of the ground, and in a 

 few years render it like a honey comb, the tree 

 becomes sickly as it advances, until it finally dies. 

 The usual remedy, we believe, when anything is 

 done, is to probe the roots with a knife, and those 

 worms that have eaten too far in to be reached in 

 that way, are destroyed by a wire forced into the 

 hole. This method, however is attended with 

 much trouble and expense, and also ineffective. 

 We learn upon authority of successful experiment 

 that boiling water, poured around the tree near 

 the bottom, has proved an antidote complete for 

 the evil, by killing the worms, so that trees hith- 

 erto sickly and decaying, have in the course of 

 two or three seasons — the experiment being re- 

 peated two or three springs in succession been 



completely restored. — Portland Jeffersonian. 



Cold Water. — It is stated in the Scientific 

 Tracts, that those persons who exclusively confine 

 themselves to brushing their teeth with pure cold 

 water, y/ithout any regard to the thousands of ar- 

 ticles ostensibly prepared with cost, to arrest the 

 progress of caries in teeth, with very few excep- 

 tions, |)reserve them in the liighest state of or- 

 ganic perfection. 



Large quantities of wood are brought to this 

 city from Long Island. The owners of woodland 

 have adopted the plan of cutting every 15 or 20 

 years. Six or eight years is too frequent — 10 to 15 

 may be the most profitable. — .V. I'. Farmer. 



