FESSENDEN'S 

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AND 



iFmA©»a®Aa »Amffiam< 



BeToted to the Culture of Silk, Agriculture, and Rural Economy. 



VOL. 1. 



BOSTON, JANUARY, 1836. 



NO. 9. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BV 



GEORGE C. BARRETT, 



51 4- 52 JVorth Market St., at the JV. E. Farmer Office. 



T. G. FESSENDEN, Editor. 



Fifty cents per year — twelve copies for five dollars 

 — always in advance. 



[CF Postmasters and Agents allowed 10 per cent oa 

 all subscribers. 



BOSTON, JANUARY, 1836. 



PACTS AND OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO 

 THE CULTURE OP SIL.K. 



Extracts from " JVoles on the Growth and Man- 

 ufacture of Silk in the United States." By M. 

 Genet, formery Embassador from France to 

 the United Statles. 



" It is a matter of fact that the planting and 

 attending to niiilberry trees, either in orchards or 

 hedges is the hardest part of tiie silk culture; 

 and that the rest of the« process, whiclx occupies 

 only the fifty or sixty days to which the life of 

 the silk worm is limited, may be conducted by 

 females, children, and old or invalid men, unable 

 to perform hard labor on any farm or plantation, 

 ami will accordingly offer a new gain without 

 impairing the other sources of income. It is 

 proper for legislators to consider, that the more 

 the science of mechanics, applied to manufactures 

 substitutes machines for manual labor, the more 

 it is useful to supply the females of our country, 

 whose number is everywhere superior to the num- 

 ber of men with the means of supporting them- 

 selves, or the families that support them, and that 

 no occupation besides the spinning of fla.x, and its 

 manufactures, not yet entirely conquered by me- 

 chanics, seems to be better calculated to employ 

 the time of that supernumerary part of the popu- 

 lation than the culture of silk. 



" It will certainly be a great while before a 

 sufficient quantity of silk can be raised in the 

 United States to become an article of exportation, 



or to supply even the few silk manufactures of 

 our own country, which now import the whole of 

 their materials. But, if the Italians, who first cul- 

 tivated the silk worms in the year 1455, from seeds 

 brought with a great deal of trouble and care to 

 Rome, by two missionary Monks returned from 

 the East Indies, had been indifferent about the 

 domestic growth of si!k, valued at that time 

 almost as much as gold ; and if the French, the 

 English, and all ether European nations who have 

 acquired wealth by the culture of that article had 

 not by botmties and rewards promoted at first its 

 introduction, and afterwards protected its exten- 

 sion by various laws, no othei^ silks, to this day, 

 would be worn, but those imported from China 

 and the East Indies. Comparatively speaking, 

 we are now in America, in reference to silk, sev- 

 eral centuries behind the other manufacturing 

 nations. That commodity, whether we import 

 it from India, China, or Europe, is for us an 

 immense absorbant of our substance, and the 

 sooner we prepare the means of stopping, effectu- 

 ally, that drain through which a great quantity of 

 bullion escapes from the vaults of our banks, the 

 better it will be for the progress of our wealth 

 and prosperity at home. 



"The growth of raw silk in a merchantable 

 state, requires hardly any capital, and it occupies 

 but very little land and very little room. 



"An ounce of seed of the silk worm will pro- 

 .duce 40,000 worms that will consume one thousand 

 pounds of white mulberry leaves, easily supplied 

 by fifty grown trees, or two hundred small ones, 

 between two and three years old, from the seed 

 or from the slips ; and the produce in silk will be 

 upon an average, twelve pounds of drawn raw 

 silk, allowing all contingencies. 



" A small hedge that will occujjy the twentieth 

 part of an acre, being planted with bushes not 

 more than three years old, as aforesaid, will supply 

 and accommodate 100,000 worms, the produce of 

 which will be thirty pounds of raw drawn silk, 

 and if the whole acre is planted in the same way, 

 the produce will be six hundred pounds ; which 



