MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS, 103 



moisture, crude and immature, produce fatal distempers in silk 

 worms. Over feeding or scantiness of food causes disease. A 

 change of the kind of food suddenly made, from the white to 

 the native red, or to the black mulberry, or when this order is 

 reversed, causes disease. Change of nourishment, when neces- 

 sary, should be gradual. The greatest danger from the change 

 of food is in the last age. 



Sudden changes of temperature, either from hot to cold or 

 cold to hot, such as frequently happen in our climate, unless 

 well guarded against produce disease. Silk-wonns, like other 

 caterpillars, breathe through little holes in their sides near the 

 belly. Any slimy or oily liquid stops these holes and kills them. 

 Hence also arises the danger of feeding too many on a given 

 space, or of suffering them to become filthy. 



In compiling the foregoing, we have selected such rules, re- 

 marks and observations as seemed most important in the volu- 

 minous writings of others on this subject. In applying them to 

 practice the silk culturist must think for himself, and let reason- 

 ing supply the deficiency in these instructions. Our purpose 

 will be well answered if we shall have been able to excite at- 

 tention to the culture of silk — shall have made those who 

 may be desirous of engaging in it, sufficiently acquainted with 

 the nature, wants and habits of this insect, to enable them to 

 think correctly and act judiciously in this important business. 

 And while the mechanic and manufacturer with an enterprise 

 worthy of much praise are causing the elements themselves to 

 work day and night for their support and aggrandizement, let it 

 not be said that the farmer alone refuses to avail himself of any 

 of those means of improving his condition which a benevolent 

 Deity has placed within his reach. The farmer who, pent up 

 in no workshop, who roams at large over his fields, and views con- 

 tinually the wonderful operations of nature, above, below and 

 around him, must be without excuse if he does not take the 

 most enlightened and enlarged views of the great interests of his 

 country and the world, or fails to devote his powers to the pro- 

 motion of the greatest good of his species — the fii'st step towards 

 the accomplishment of which is to make himself influential and 

 happy. 



