FESSENDEN'S 



111® Mi^ssrw^ii>9 



AND 



Derofed to the Culture of Silk, Ag^riculture, and Rural Economy. 



VOL. 1. 



BOSTON, OCTOBER, 1835. 



NO. 6- 



the several rounds as they lie on the reel should 

 not be glued together. When the skein is quite 

 dry it is taken off the reel, and a tie is made with 

 some of the refuse silk on that part of the skein 

 where it bore upon the bar of the reel, and an- 

 Fifty cents per year — twelve copies for five dollars other tie on the opposite part of the skein, after 



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T. G. FESSENDEN— Editor. 



-always in advance. 



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 all subscribers. 



BOSTON, OCTOBER, 1835. 



which it is doubled into a hank, and usually tied 

 round near the extremity, when it is laid by for 

 use or sale." — Loudon. 



Mr Kenrick, in his Silk Grower's Guide, asserts 

 tliat " the use of the reel requires dexterity and 

 practice. The cocoons, after being cleared of 



t ACTS AND OBSKRVATIONS REIiATIVE TO 

 THE CULTURE OF SILK. 



On Reeling Silk. — "The cocoons, or produce Hoss, are thrown by handsfull into basins of pure 

 of the worms, as soon as completed, are either soft water, placed over small furnaces of charcoal 



reeled off or sold to others to be reeled. The silk 

 as formed by the worm is so fine, that if each ball 

 or cocco:i was reeled separately, it would be en- 

 tirely unfit for the purposes of the manufacturer. 

 In the reeling therefore, after the cocoons are 

 cleared from the floss, the ends of several are 

 joined and reeled together out of warm water, 

 which, softening their natural gum, makes them 



fires. When the water is altnost at boiling point, 

 sink the cocoon with a whisk of broom corn un- 

 der water for two or three minutes, to soften the 

 gum and loosen the fibre. Then moving the 

 whisk lightl}'^, the filaments will adhere to it, and 

 may be drawn off till the flossy silk is unwound, 

 and the fine silk comes off. A sufficient number 

 being collected, the reeling begins. If the pods 



stick together so as to form one strong smooth leap upwards, the reel must be slackened; if the 

 thread. As often as any single thread breaks or silk comes off in bars, you must turn faster ; if 

 comes to an end, its place is supplied by a new the water is too hot, they furze in unwinding, and 

 one, so that by continually keej iiig up the same the fine lustre of white silk is injured, and cold 

 number, the united thread may be wound to any water must be added. It requires^ long practice 

 length. The single threads of the newly added dexterously to attend to the splicing on the fibret* 

 cocoons are not joined by any tie, but simply laid to keep up an even thread, as the silk grows con- 

 on the main thread, to which they adhere by their tinually finer to the end of the cocoon." 

 gum; and their ends are so fine as not to cause Mr Cobb, in giving the " Method of reeling 

 the least jjerceptib^e unevenness in the place where cocoons and manufacturing silk in Connecticut," 

 they are laid on. Care should be taken in the states that " a large kettle set in a furnace, or in 

 operation that the silk when reeled off may con- an arch, is filled with water, and fire is kept under 

 sist of a smooth thread of equal thickness and it ; and when it is about to boil a quart of cocoons 

 strength, not flat, but of a round form, having the is thrown into it," &c. ; and after describing^other 

 small threads of which it is composed as equally preparatory measures, he says, " Reeling is then 

 stretched and firmly united as possible, and that commenced on a common ht^nd reel (such as in 



