182 THE MODERN HISTORY OF SILK. 



and thus do we possess two striking advantages 

 which amply compensate for the loss of many others. 



In the year 1785, Miss Rhodes again tried the 

 rearing of the Silk Worm ; but, owing to the difficulty 

 of procuring mulberry trees, she greatly limited the 

 numbers, preserving only as many eggs as covered a 

 fheet of writing paper. In order that the worms 

 might have the advantage of the hottest summer 

 months, these eggs were not exposed until the 

 morning of the first of June ; and, before night, some 

 hundreds were hatched, and, in a day or two, the 

 whole made their appearance. As she had con- 

 vinced herself, from experiments, that lettuce was 

 the only food which could be relied upon next to the 

 mulberry, she caused some large beds to be carefully 

 cultivated. She then made trial how long they would 

 subsist upon these without injury to their growth. 

 or the produce of the texture of the silk. They were 

 o fine and healthy, that she fed them solely with 

 lettuces till the 24th of June, being twenty-four days, 

 or double the time they used to be kept from the 

 leaves of the mulberry tree. 



In less than a week after this change of food, 

 having attained their full growth, and exhibiting that 

 beautiful transparency which predicts their maturity, 

 they began to spin, and produced cones as fine and 

 firm as any she had ever had before. 



By the latter end of July, the whole business wa* 

 completed, and she wound exactly four thousand 

 cones, which produced eleven ounces of silk, precisely 

 the same as that of the preceding year. 



