1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 159 



tions. Public sentiment and public actions can be affected but 

 in a slight degree by the opinions of any individual ; and ad- 

 dressing one's self to intelligent and reflecting minds, no evil can 

 result from the freest discussion. No good will come from 

 creating false expectations ; and I should be glad to disabuse 

 the public mind of some of the gross illusions by which it has 

 been willingly imposed upon. In some of the documents before 

 me, and those published under authority, it has been confi- 

 dently stated, that an acre of land planted with mulberry trees, 

 may be expected to produce the first year one hundred pounds 

 of silk, and afterwards be increased to 333 lbs., and even to 

 666 lbs. ; and that the profits of such cultivation would be 

 $1170 per acre. Another person goes on to calculate that one 

 hundred acres even at ISO lbs. to the acre, and silk at 4 dollars 

 per lb., might be made to afford an income of ,f 72,000. At 

 present these must be considered as mere dreams. If this be 

 practicable, why has it not been done ? There has been ample 

 time in other countries, and in this country, to have done it, if 

 it could be done. There have been trees enough, and land 

 enough, and capital enough ; and in some of the states a bounty 

 has been offered for some years on the production of silk, ad- 

 mitted by the most ardent friends of the cultivation, to be suffi- 

 cient to cover the whole expense of production. In what 

 country, at what time, was ever such encouragement to pro- 

 duction held out before ? But no such returns have been 

 obtained or even approached ; and with the exception of Mr, 

 Atwood, before referred to, and Miss Rapp, at Economy, who, 

 until new claimants appear, must be allowed the rank of queen 

 of this branch of domestic industry, it would be difficult, I 

 imagine, to find half a dozen individuals in the whole Union 

 who have produced, either of them in one year, one hundred 

 pounds of silk. I myself know not of one. I should have been 

 glad of the honor of recording the names of hundreds who had 

 accomplished it, if they were to be found. Mr. McLean, who 

 has approached more nearly than any other man in the coun- 

 try towards determining what can well be done, admits, with 



