SEWING SILK AND TWIST. 105 



fied that most of them are erroneous in their results. 

 By this, he does not mean that the gentlemen who 

 have made them, have intended to mislead the public ; 

 but that they have misjudged with respect to a fair 

 average crop. Some of these estimates are mani- 

 festly extravagantly high ; while others arc, equally 

 as manifest, below the truth. Were the ms.liuin, be- 

 tween the two extremes taken, it is believed it would 

 be as near an approximation to the truth, as the pres- 

 ent imperfect state of the business will admit. Ta- 

 king this, then, as correct data, the conclusion would 

 be, that from $125 to 8150 nett profit may be ex- 

 pected from an acre of full grown trees, or covered 

 with full grown hedges. 



LABOR REQUIRED. 



It is difficult to make accurate estimates of the labor 

 required in feeding ana attending a family of silk 

 worms of a given number; as there are several cir- 

 cumstances which tend to increase or diminish it ma- 

 terially such as the distance the foliage is from the 

 cocoonery the size of the trees and the quantity of 

 their leaves the variety of the tree, whether of 

 the Chinese or Italian, &c. &c. 



The following estimate, however, has been made 

 by a correspondent of the New York Farmer, which 

 may be regarded by the culturist as accurate as any 

 thing he can find on the subject, short of actual ex- 

 periment. " The labor required to attend 1,000,000 

 worms would be, the first week, two persons ; for the 

 second, four ; for the third, eight ; for the remaining 

 two, fifteen or twenty." This will make an aggre- 

 gate amount of 324 days, necessary for a family of 

 that number. The same writer estimates the product 



