188 THE MODERN HISTORY OF SILK. 



they vegetate with all the luxuriance that can be 

 wished. 



The chief reason alleged for the necessity of 

 finding out a substitute for mulberry leaves is, that 

 these leaves are not produced early enough in this 

 climate to become the food of the infant worms. It 

 is well known that the leaves of the mulberry tree 

 seldom begin to unfold themselves before the latter 

 end of May, or the beginning of June. It is likewise 

 a matter of notoriety, that those few Silk Worms 

 which have as yet been bred in this island, have 

 mostly been hatched in the beginning of May, or 

 even earlier. From hence there has been supposed 

 a necessity of providing some more early vegetating 

 plant for their food, before the leaves of that tree are 

 ready for them. That no such necessity exists is 

 very apparent. Is it not natural to conclude, that 

 the constitution of the air, respecting warmth, should 

 at one and the same time expand the leaf, and 

 hatch the insect, which was intended by the all-wise 

 Providence to inhabit and feed on that leaf? This, 

 we may observe, is the constant course of nature, 

 with respect to all other insects and their food. We 

 have every reason to suppose that this is the case 

 with the Silk Worms, and the mulberry leaves, in 

 those countries where both are indigenous ; and 

 there cannot be the shadow of a doubt, that this 

 effect would naturally and invariably obtain as well 

 in this climate as any other, did not human impru- 

 dence interpose to prevent it, and art obstruct the 



