290 



Hie Silk Business. 



Vol. VIT, 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Silk Business. 



Messrs. Editors, — I rejoice — no one more 

 rejoices, at the information conveyed to me 

 from all quarters of the Union, that the Rev. 

 Henry Colman has undertaken an agricultu- 

 ral tour of observation in Europe. His re- 

 ports from thence, will be looked for with 

 more than common interest, and great good 

 will, no doubt, be the result. I know of no 

 one in whom the power of judicious obser- 

 vation is more inherent, and to whom ihe 

 agricultural community could look with 

 more confidence. 



It is said, Mr. Colman intends to devote 

 himself to the inquiry, how far it would be 

 expedient to introduce the silk manufacture 

 into the United States. In the south of 

 France, he will have an opportunity of 

 studying the subject in all its bearings — 

 which, I must be permitted to remind him, 

 are various and even conflicting; in my es- 

 timation, the profit of the employment con- 

 sists not in dollars and cents, nor the facility 

 and ease with which it might be carried on 

 It is true, that it might be there a fit busi- 

 ness for " old people and children ;" but in a 

 nation like ours, we ought to be able to sup- 

 port our "old people and children" in a far 

 different manner than they are provided for 

 in the silk countries of Europe ; and that — 

 or I am much mistaken, — Mr. Colman will 

 perceive with a glance. And let him ob- 

 serve, whether it be a fact, that the inhabit 

 ants of these countries are " imbecile in 

 mind and body, short-lived, and cadaverous 

 in appearance, liable to natural malforma- 

 tions, particularly of the hands and feet; and 

 fit subjects of tyrannical and monarchical 

 governments," as they have been represented 

 to be. For myself, I do not hesitate to say, 

 I prefer to see a man walk upright in the 

 majesty of his nature, improving the soil of 

 his country and his own mind, than to con- 

 template him confined to a space about four 

 feet square, packed close in a manufactory, 

 imbibing an atmosphere contaminated with 

 floating and putrid animal effluvium, for 16 

 hours a day. But even this is better than 

 to see this system inflicted on "old persons 

 and children" — that appears to me about the 

 perfection of cruelty, of which I do not like 

 even to think. But Mr. Colman may have 

 it in his power to remove all these difficul- 

 ties, by showing us that the system is adap- 

 ted to a country, boasting of hundreds of 

 millions of acres of land, all crying out for 

 improvement; thousands of miles of paths 

 to be made straight through the wilderness, 

 and the rough places made plain ; with mil- 

 lions of intellectual beings to be reared and 



cultivated in the strength of body and mind 

 to undertake the glorious work — the reno- 

 vation of about one half a world ! 



And I must be excused if I say, I doubl 

 whether the silk business is to be carried on 

 with that careless " odd times" service, whicl 

 has been made its greatest recommendation; 

 or that tending the worms and reeling the 

 silk, is by any means so pleasing a task tc 

 the "iemale portion of our households," at 

 has been represented. Judging from what 

 I lately witnessed at a cocoonery at Cant- 

 well's-bridge, Delaware, I should say, de- 

 cidedly, it is quite the reverse; for here ] 

 saw two lovely girls sitting to the loath- 

 some task of stirring cocoons in hot water, 

 and catching the ends of the silk for reeling, 

 in an atmosphere so putrid and disgusting, 

 that I would not confine a brute to it ! — and 

 heard them complain, that after a long day's 

 labour they seemed to have done nothing, 

 These girls ought to be differently em- 

 ployed ; in the beautiful " far West," theii 

 services would be a thousand times more 

 valuable, in making happy homes for a very 

 different race of beings; where the delicate 

 lily would be exchanged for the rose of na- 

 ture's painting, and no more be heard of sick 

 headache and difficulty of breathing ! 



But my intention was, to introduce to 

 your notice, the following extract from a 

 late Address before the Agricultural Society 

 of Fredericksburg, by J. M. Garnett, Esq., 

 who lias taken up the subject in his own 

 lucid manner, and in my opinion, has made 

 an end of it. He says : 



" My last experiment I feel scruples in 

 mentioning, lest I should excite in my hear- 

 ers the same very annoying reminiscences 

 which the word mullicaulis, never fails to 

 awaken in my own mind ; but the state- 

 ment of unsuccessful trials, is often as use- 

 ful to us as of those which best succeed, and 

 this fact encourages me to proceed. Know 

 then, that having been amongst the afflicted 

 with the multicaulis humbug, I sought to 

 alleviate my sufferings by striving to make 

 some use of those far-famed and treasure- 

 bearing bushes, which, when the golden 

 harvest time came that was to fill all our 

 coffers to overflowing, I could neither sell 

 nor give away. The periodicals that had 

 been the chief spreaders of the epidemic,, 

 set to work, immediately after it had seized! 

 almost every body, to cheer our drooping 

 spirits, by proving, that to retrieve all ouij 

 losses, it was only forthwith to commence s 

 raising silk-worms — to this, therefore, many 

 of us hastened as to a last hope, and amongsf 

 the rest, your humble servant: one of my 

 daughters persuaded me to the undertaking. J 

 and at it we went, with the honest purpose 



