734 



FARMERS' REGISTER— VIRGINIA NATURAL SILK WORM. 



drainage can be executed, except at great cost, and in 

 an imperfect manner. 



There is, however, a law of Virginia (enacted about 

 1S26,) which indirectly offers aid and encouragement to 

 one important kind of drainage, that of mill-ponds — by 

 authorizing canals to be dug through the lands of any 

 neighboring proprietors, by the assessment and paying 

 of all damages thereby incurred. Very little, if any 

 use has been yet made of the privileges offered by this 

 law ; and it seems, indeed, that but few persons are 

 aware of its being on the statute book. One valuable 

 improvementof this kind has since been made in Hano- 

 ver, under all the disadvantages of the absence of this 

 law, because its existence was unknown to the person 

 who was attempting, and succeeded in exchanging a 

 pestilential pond, for a rich dry meadow, and obtaining 

 at the same time, a far better sui^ply of water power for 

 his mill. The benefit is incalculable that might be 

 derived to Eastern Virginia, by a recourse to this plan, 

 wherever the locality admits of it. It is not many 

 years ago, that a farm of 1200 acres was gained in 

 Dinwiddie, by cutting a mill-dam which backed the 

 water over that quantity of land — and other mill-ponds 

 still remain, in neighboring counties, which severally 

 cover 300 to 400 acres of swamp land. Of all the 

 causes of autumnal diseases in Virginia, mill-ponds are 

 the most general, and most efficient — a_nd the destruc- 

 tion of all, which are not well supplied with water in 

 summer, would be a great benefit to the community,- 

 even if nobetter water power was attainable by canals. 

 There are many mill-ponds, the bottoms of which, if 

 drained, would yield more corn, than the mills receive 

 in toll, or perhaps, more than all the corn they grind in 

 the year. 



In the case of mill-ponds, the law, though permitting 

 and aiding their drainage to a certain extent, in other 

 respects, presents insuperable obstacles, by arra3nng 

 opposing interests. In general, the owner of a mill does 

 not own the land covered by the water of his pond — 

 and therefore, he has no interest in draining it. He 

 simply possesses (by law) the right of inundating his 

 jieighbors' lands, and of giving them the ague and fever 

 every autumn — and enjoys the profit of the grinding, so 

 dearly, though indirectly, paid for by others. Now the 

 property in the bottom of a pond, which another has a 

 right to keep full of water forever, and whose interest 

 it served by doing so; is clearly not worth a cent. If 

 the right to the bottom of the pond was vested in the 

 mill owner, it would be conducive to his interest to lay 

 it dry, and his neighbors would all thereby be benefitted, 

 as well as himself. Yet if it was proposed so to vest 

 this property, {real in law, but ideal in fact,) what a host 

 of guardians of the "rights of property" would be 

 awakened, and what loud and fierce denunciations of 

 wrong and oppression would be uttered !] 



THE VIRGINIA NATURAL SILK WORM. 



[We are indebted to the last New England Farmer for 

 the following curious piece of antiquity, which must be 

 interesting to readers in the i-egion of whicli these won- 

 ders were told. In the Farmers' Register, this poem 

 after having been forgotten, ar^ well as its subject, for 

 nearly two centuries, will probably be read by some of 

 the descendents of those whose enterprize or good for- 



tune it was intended to commemorate — and who still 

 bear the names inherited from ' Master William 

 Wright of Nansemound,' 'worthy Bernard, that stout 

 Colonel,' ' Mistress Garret and Mary Ward' or of 'no- 

 ble Digs.' The lines' are as much wanting in truth, as 

 in poetical or correct language. Still they must correctly 

 set forth the fact, that high hopes were once entertained 

 of immense profits being attainable by the rearing of 

 the insect described — and the result sufficiently shows 

 the fallacy of these hopes. The 'most noble Virginian 

 natural silk worm,' is still found, though rarely. The 

 cocoon, though of less size than described by the author, 

 is very large in comparison to the common silk worm. 

 The worm changes to a very large moth or butterfly, 

 having a single circular spot on each wing, and in that 

 respect, is similar to (and perhaps is the same with) the 

 Peacock butterfly described in the Spectacle de la J^ature. 

 We have seen, some of these butterflies, obtained from 

 the cocoon, of a pale brown color. Others, similar in 

 other respects, have been seen of a pale green, except 

 the large circular spots just described, which in all were 

 alike. It is still a subject worth inquiry, whether the 

 labor of these insects, has ever been put to any actual 

 use, or could be used to any profit.] 



The following poem (says the editor of .the New 

 England Farmer,) is taken from a work, printed 

 in London, in 1655, by John Streeter, entitled 

 " The reformed Virginia Silk Worm, Or, a Rare 

 and New Discovery of a speedy tvay, and easie 

 means, found out by a young Lady in England, 

 she having made full proof thereof in May, anno, 

 1652. For the feeding of Silk-XDorms in the Woods, 

 on the Mulberry- Tree-leaves in Virginia: Who af- 

 ter fourty dayes time, present their 7nost rich golden- 

 ccloured silken Fleece, to the instant wonderful en- 

 riching of all the Planters there, requiring from 

 them neither cost, labor, or hindrance in any of 

 their other employvients ivhatsoever. jJnd also to 

 the good hopes, that the Indians, seeing and finding 

 that there is neither Jlrt, Skill or Pains in the thing; 

 they will readily set upon it, being by the benefit 

 thereof inabled to buy of the English (in way of 

 Truck for their Silk-bottoms) all those things that 

 they most desire." 



POEM 



Upon the mo.st Nobie, Virginian natural Silk- 

 VVorm her wonderful, various, plentiful food; The 

 infinite, speedy, great wealth she will profiuce to 

 her protector; (in forty-five days tiie time of 

 her feeding) with small labor, cost, or skill, 

 (learnt in an houres space by any child.) The 

 singular aptness of that rare Superlative (Mimate, 

 in Breeding them on so many several kinds of 

 trees in her Woods where tlicy live, Feed and 

 Spin, their mighty large, strange, double bot- 

 toms* of Silk : to the acini iration^of this our Old 

 World ; but to the exal tat ion and glory of incom- 

 parable Virginia, in the New. 



* This word is synonymous with cocoon, as appears from the 

 followinE; extrart from another part of the pamphlet. ' The Silk 

 Bottome of the natnrall Worme in Virginia, found there in the 

 Woods, is ten Inches about, and si-if Inches in leritith to admira- 

 tion ; and whereas ours in Europe have their Sleave and loose 

 Silke on the outside; and then 'in a more closer covering they 

 intombe themselves. These rare AVorms, before they inclose 

 themselves up, fill with Silke the great emptinesse, and atter- 

 wards inclose themselVes in the middle of it, so they have a 

 double Boltom. The loose Sleave Silk is all on the outside of 

 this compass, for if that were reckoned in, the compass of the 

 Bottom would far exceed this proportion: But this is sufficient to 

 be the Wonder of the whole World : to the Glory of the Creator, 

 and Exaltation of VIRGINIA.' 



