1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 153 



gardens of the old world will hardly have time to wither, be- 

 fore they strike their roots anew into onr own soil. This 

 brings men into one common brotherhood ; and what a de- 

 lightful and mutual interchange of advantages will be contin- 

 ually extending itself, while the path over the hitherto track- 

 less waters, is now easily marked out, as to the ancient Israel- 

 ites, by a curling cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night ; 

 and a voyage which was of months, is now measured by days 

 and hours. 



The improvements likewise made in the management, or as 

 it is professionally termed, the education of the silk worm, on 

 the experimental silk establishment of M. Beauvais, to which 

 1 have already referred, and by which four harvests may be 

 obtained in a year, and a larger yield from the number of 

 worms fed than by any other process, will be extended, and 

 produce their natural effects. It has occurred to me, likewise, 

 that the culture of silk is likely to be increased in British 

 India. Not an inconsiderable amount of persons in these prov- 

 inces have been engaged in the production of opium, with a 

 view to the Chinese market. If the noble effort of the Chinese 

 sovereign to arrest this dreadful scourge, which has opened 

 such a flood of misery upon his dominions, are to be successful, 

 and a nation of barbarians are able to put a stop to the nefa- 

 rious efforts of the agents of a nation calling itself Christian 

 to force this deadly physical and moral poison into their veins ; 

 then the cultivation of this drug in British India, will be much 

 abated ; and why should not the labor of this population be 

 turned into some other channel ? Great Britain imports an- 

 nually about 28,000 bales of raw silk of 162 lbs. each, or, in 

 gross numbers, over three million and a half of pounds. Now, 

 with the power, recently understood, of propagating the best 

 varieties of the mulberry with a rapidity, which almost exceeds 

 belief, and in a climate favorable to this kind of tree, where 

 three harvests may be easily gathered in a year, why should not 

 a portion of this population be turned to the cultivation of silk 

 and cotton, with both which they are familiar ? In the pre- 

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