70 



SILK MANUAL, AND 



ANTICIPATED CHANGE: IN THE AGRICULTURE 

 OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Some considerable time has now passed since 

 we yielded, slowly and with difficulty, to the be- 

 lief, that the introduction of silk culture in this 

 country would be extended widely and profitably : 

 and since adopting that opinion, we have made 

 continually repeated efforts to impress on the peo- 

 ple of Virginia, and the other southern states, the 

 superiority of their facilities — in better climate, 

 cheaper land, and surplus and now less expensive 

 hands — for carrying on this new business, over 

 those of our northern countrymen, who have al- 

 ready proved the advantages to be derived, and 

 are investing large capitals in numerous adventures 

 for this object. In New England, where most of 

 these efforts are making, there is no superfluity of 

 labor. Fortunately, every poor female, and all 

 persons infirm from either tender or advanced 

 age, may be, and annually are, employed profitably, 

 according to their measure of bodily power. Yet 

 still it is considered profitable to divert much of 

 this labor to the silk business : and that too, in a 

 climate so rigorous that artificial heat must be 

 used frequently in rearing the worms, and the 

 best kinds of mulberries are often greatly injured 

 if not killed to the ground, by such severe winters 

 as the last. In Virginia, there is no difficulty as 

 to climate — thousands now unemployed and ex- 

 pensive hands might be given to the work — and 

 lands, now unprofitable or neglected, and at very 

 low prices, would serve as well for planting, as 

 those selling ten or twenty times as high in New 

 England. Putting all views of greater pecuniary 

 profits aside, if the silk culture could be establish- 

 ed in Virginia, without any absolute loss to the un- 

 dertakers, a great moral and political benefit would 

 be gained, in giving the bread of inde[)endence and 

 of honest labor, to thousands of destitute females, 

 who have now no resource but to live on the char- 

 ity of others, or to starve on their own ill-paid la- 

 bor of the needle. 



Another new kind of industry now seems like- 

 ly to be introduced, and established with profit — 

 and which, in a different manner, offers great 

 benefit to the agriculture of a large portion of the 

 United States. This is the making of sugar from 

 beets. We readily confess, that until very recent- 

 ly, we considered this scheme worthless, and ab- 

 surd in every country that could freely import su- 

 gar produced from the cane — and that this spe- 

 cies of industry, which could not be established 

 by the iron despotism of Napoleon, and the pro- 

 tection afforded by his " continual system," could 

 not exist in times of peace and of comparatively 

 free trade. But we have been forced to yield the 

 opinion to such facts as are presented in the letter 

 of Professor Cooper, and other pieces in this No. 

 which are but specimens of many that have re- 



cently appeared. If, as seems to be undeniable, 

 beet sugar can be made cheaper than that of the 

 cane can be bought, there is an end of all question 

 and doubt as to profit. There is also an agricul- 

 tural benefit to be expected from the new culture 

 of beets, for sugar, that is very important, and that 

 is an addition to all the pecuniary profit expected 

 from the sale of sugar, and the profits of live stock 

 fed on the pulp left after the saccharine matter 

 has been expressed. This is the introduction in 

 our farming of what is so greatly needed, an in- 

 creased extent of culture of roots, or green and 

 meliorating crops, to take the plaje of our too ex- 

 tensive grain culture. The culture of beets for 

 sugar, and the use of the pulp as food for cattle, 

 must necessarily make the rotation of crops more 

 mild, and add greatly to the improvement of the 

 soil — and by this means, would ultimately add 

 very far more to the fertility and wealth of a 

 country, than as much grain culture, even though 

 the pecuniary profits to the farmer, at first, might 

 be no more. The same important consideration 

 aj)plies also, though in a different manner, to silk 

 culture. Thus it may well happen, that the in- 

 troduction of these two new kinds of culture, even 

 though not attended with greater pecuniary profits, 

 (or not much greater,) at first, would be produc- 

 tive ultimately of far greater to each individual 

 farmer, as well as of greater moral and political 

 benefits to the nation. 



This important consideration of the advantage 

 of beet culture to a rotation of crops, is properly 

 appreciated in France. The latest French article 

 on the subject that we havfe seen is from the pen 

 of M. Soulange Bodin, and appeared in the An- 

 nates de V Agriculture Francaise for April, 1836. 

 We offer a translation of a passage on this head. 



" The Viscount Morel de Vinde, in these Me- 

 moirs, has then presented the sugar beet as being 

 the best, or rather the only kind of tilled plants 

 which, in the four-shift rotation can usefully be 

 substituted for the year of naked fallow (to prepare 

 for wheat ;) and he thus considers as connected 

 the universal perfection of our agriculture, with 

 the manufacture itself of sugar from beets: a man- 

 ufacture which, by its indefinite extension, and 

 demand continually rene wed, ought to give great- 

 er encouragement to the culture of this plant, 

 which is susceptible of having, from this moment, 

 a general use, and a certain sale. Indeed he says, 

 the (making perfect the) four-shift rotation, consists 

 in finding a plant that is not exhausting to the soil 

 — of which the tillage is confined to one year, 

 and serves well to cleanse and to pulverize the 

 soil — and of which the products, not yielding a 

 kind of food for men before indigenous, or be-^ 

 longing to the country, shall however be in gen- 

 eral use, and command certain and ready sale. 

 The beet, applied to the making of sugar, fulfils 



