118 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[Augupt, 



But I will not follow this train of reasoning 

 at present as my slieet is full, but would wish 

 to call the attention of farmers and fruit 

 growers to the fact that our grain crops have 

 greatly increased during the last half century 

 —chiefly from the use ol lime, and our fruit 

 crops decreased from some cause to me un- 

 known unless it is from the application of 

 celearous manures. — J. B. Garber. 



FoK THE Lancaster Farmer. 

 TARIFFS AND THEIR EFFECTS. 



The article in the June number of the 

 Farmer entitled "change of prices," etc., in 

 which I trenched on the tariff question, has 

 brought out J. P. in the July number, who, 

 by the by, handles the tariff question with a 

 good deal of ingenuity and argument, and 

 also at considerable length. I must confess, 

 however, that I cannot clearly comprehend J. 

 P's. argument, or rather, perhaps, J. P., doeS 

 not take in my meaning in regard to the 

 working the tarift'. A country, or a govern- 

 ment, comparatively stands in the attitude of 

 an individual. If an individual has nothing 

 to sell, he is, of course not considered a good 

 manager of his affairs. Or rather, if he has 

 to buy more than he sells, he is not considered 

 a good housekeeper. But whether the com- 

 munity is injuriously affected, or better off, I 

 am at a loss to know. 



First. Taking the term tariff to mean the 

 exacting or levying a tax, direct or indirect 

 which should only be enforced to protect an 

 individual or a government in particular 

 emergencies, there ought to be no diiiiculty 

 in reaching a conclusion, according to the 

 very nature of the case. As times and people 

 change in all things relating to human pro- 

 gress, so should our lawmakers change our 

 laws. Our lawmakers should be selected 

 from among such practical men as will 

 be able to travel with the age in which 

 they live, and the changes we are following. 

 As I said before, discount and repudiate all 

 pretended Statesmen who profess to act for 

 the people, but are nothing but corrupt and 

 and only are interested in official spoils. 



The four hundred millions of dollars are col- 

 lected in tariffs, revenues and various other 

 sources, one million four hundred thousand 

 of which is in the Treasury of the United 

 States, and the four millions of dollars col- 

 lected in our State of which over four hun- 

 dred thousand dollars is now kept in the State 

 Treasury, and the thousands of dollars col- 

 lected in Lancaster county, etc., (all of which 

 I am no advocate of collecting direct from the 

 people) if the people would take the trouble 

 to look into the matters it would have the 

 effect of opening their eyes, and excite their 

 inquiry as to what is becoming of all this 

 money, ruhv gets it, hoio do they get it, and 

 what is given as an equivalent for it V 

 The tariff, as I think it should be assessed 

 and used, ought to be for reasonable protec- 

 tion — one nation to protect itself against an- 

 other. 



As a general thing a young nation, which 

 is not yet firmly established in manufac- 

 tures, and has not the hard money or specie, 

 should be protected against the commer- 

 cial innovations ot older and more permanent- 

 ly established notions, having lower prices 

 and greater manufacturing facilities, absorb- 



ing the pecuniary means of the younger na- 

 tion, by the withdrawal of its specie, and an 

 unequal competition. 



Taking lor one of our maxims— if perliaps, 

 not the best that an individual or a nation 

 can be governed by— that "that individual or 

 nation which maks economy and industry the 

 enduring basis of individual, state and na- 

 tional prosperity, should be protected by the 

 laws of the land, (always remembering to 

 '!first seek the kingdom of heaven, and all 

 these thincs shall be added unto you.' ") 



"We should follow, as I said before, time's 

 changes; and, as we have had heretofore, 

 from time to time, protective tariffs which 

 worked well, so well as to enable us to com- 

 pete with older nations, and brought us am- 

 ple revenue, so, in my opinion, we should 

 continue to keep the balance of trade in our 

 favor, but at the same time protect economy 

 and industry, and not luxury and extrava- 

 gance.— P. S. R. 



Selections. 



SILK CULTURE. 



We are one of those who believe in the ulti- 

 mate feasability of silk culture in this county, 

 and we desire to place on permanent record 

 such information as may be useful to those 

 who may desire to make this 'industry a spe- 

 cialty, among their secular occupations. 



The following paper on this subject, by 

 Prof. C. V. Riley, M. A. Ph. D. Entomolo- 

 gist of Department of Agriculture, we appro- 

 priate, from the columns of the National 

 Farmer^ Washington, D. C, as a proper in- 

 troduction, because a history of the habits, 

 the transformations and general character of 

 the vxirms, is of paramount importance in 

 the conduct of the silk business; indeed the 

 very foundation of the whole superstructure 

 is involved in healthy, thrifty worms. With- 

 out these through whose bodies the tissues 

 known as silk are elaborated, all else would 

 be a mere inert and profitless skeleton, only 

 fit to be consigned to the "valley of drybones," 

 as an industrial enterprise. — L^d.] 

 Nature of the Silk Worm. 



The silkworm proper, or that which sup- 

 plies the ordinary silk or commerce, is the 

 larva of a small moth known to scientific men 

 as Sericaria mvri. It is often popularly 

 characterized as the mulberry silkworm. Its 

 place among insects is with the Lepidoptcra, 

 or spinners. There are several closely allied 

 species, which spin silk of different qualities, 

 none of which, however, unite strength and 

 fineness in the same admirable proportions as 

 does that of the mulberry species. The latter 

 has, moreover, acquired many useful pecu- 

 liarities during the long centuries of cultiva- 

 tion it has undergone. It has in fact become 

 a true domesticated animal. The quality 

 which man has endeavored to select in breed- 

 ing this insect is, of course, that of silk-pro- 

 ducing, and hence we find that, when we 

 compare it with its wild relations, the cocoon 

 is vastly disproportionate to the size of the 

 worm which makes it or the moth that issues 

 from it. Other peculiarities have incidentally 

 appeared, and the great number of varieties 

 or races of the silkworm almost equal those 

 of the domestic dog. The white color of the 

 species; its seeming want of all desire to 



escape so long as it is kept supplied with leaves, 

 and the loss of the power of flight on the 

 part of the moth, are all undoubtedly the re- 

 sult of domestication. From these facts, and 

 particularly from that of the great variation 

 within specillc limits to which the insect is 

 subject, it will be evident to all that the fol- 

 lowing remarks upon the nature of the silk- 

 worm must necessarily be very general in 

 tlieir character. 



The silkworm exists in four states — egg, 

 larva, chrysalis, and adult or imago — which 

 we will briefly describe. 

 Different States or Stages of the Silk Worm 



The Egg.— The egg of the silkworm moth 

 is called by silk-raisers the "seed.'' It is 

 nearly round, slightly flattened, and in siie re- 

 sembles a turnip seed. Its color when first 

 deposited is yellow, and this color it retains if 

 unimpregnated. If impregnated, however, it 

 .^oon acquires a gray, slate, lilac, violet, or 

 even dark green hue, according to variety or 

 breed. It also becomes indented. When dis- 

 eased it assumes a still darker and dull tint. 

 With some varieties it is fastened to the sub- 

 stance upon which it is deposited, by a gum- 

 my secretion of the moth, produced in the act 

 of ovipositing. Other varieties, however, 

 among which may be mentioned the Adria- 

 nople whites and the yellows from Nouka, in 

 the Caucasus, have not this natural gum. As 

 the hatching point approaches, the egg be- 

 comes lighter in color, which is due to the 

 fact that its fluid contents become concen- 

 trated, as it were, into the central, forming 

 worm, leaving an intervening space between 

 it and the shell, which is semi-transparent. 

 Just before hatching the worm within becom- 

 ing more active, a slight clicking sound is fre- 

 quently heard, which sound is, however, com- 

 mon to the eggs of many other insects. After 

 the worm has made its exit by gnawing a 

 hole through one side of the shell, this last 

 becomes quite white. Each female produces 

 on an average from three to four hundred 

 eggs, and one ounce of eggs contains about 

 40,000 individuals. It has been noticed that 

 the color of the albuminous fluid of the egg 

 corresponds to that of the cocoon, so that 

 when the fluid is white the cocoon produced 

 is also white, and when yellow the cocoon 

 again corresponds. 



The Larva or Worm. — The worm goes 

 through from three to four molts or sicknesses, 

 the latter being the normal number. The 

 periods between these different molts are 

 called ages, there being five of these ages in- 

 cluding the first from the hatching, and the 

 last from the fourth molt to the spinning 

 period. Tlie time between each of these 

 molts is usually divided as follows : The first 

 period occupies from five to six days, the 

 second but four or five, the third about five 

 the fourth from five to six, and the fifth from 

 eight to ten. These periods are not exact, 

 but simply proportionate. The time from the 

 hatching to the spinning of the cocoons may, 

 and does, vary all the way from .30 to 40 days, 

 depending upon the race of the worm, the 

 quality of the food, mode of feeding, temper- 

 ature, etc. ; but the same relative proportion 

 of time between molts usually holds true. 



The color of the newly hatched worm is 

 black or dark gray, and it is covered with long 

 stiff' hairs, ;,which, upon close examination, 



