170 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [March, 



many of our pauper establishments, where farms are connected 

 with them. Here, often, there is a great deal of light labor 

 available, which it is difficult and impossible to apply to ad- 

 vantage in the common field operations of agriculture, and 

 which, now applied to the picking of oakum or to knitting, 

 amounts to little. This labor, under judicious superintend- 

 ence, might be advantageously applied to the production of silk. 



3. For the Shakers. — I take particular pleasure in recom- 

 mending the culture of silk to my respected friends the Sha- 

 kers. They have every element of success ; intelligence, 

 skill, exactness, perseverance, abundance of labor, land enough ; 

 and buildings already prepared for their operations. They, 

 of any among us, would be the fittest persons to undertake 

 the artificial method of M. Camille Beauvais. Their female 

 aid is of the best description for this culture. They may pur- 

 sue it to any desirable extent ; and I cannot have a doubt, if 

 they should undertake it witii their usual care and determina- 

 tion, their enterprise would be crowned with success. 



4. For Schools. — Attempts have been made in diiferent 

 parts of New England, to get up manual labor schools; that 

 is, schools designed to aid poor young men and women in get- 

 ting an education, by making their expenses light, and allow- 

 ing them to defray a portion of these expenses, by some labor, 

 rendered daily or occasionally, either in a work-shop, or a farm 

 attached to the institution. This is a benevolent design. That 

 it has not hitherto succeeded as well as could be wished, is not 

 the fault of the scheme, but comes from improper management. 

 Into such an institution, the silk culture may be introduced with 

 singular advantage, if pains are taken previously, to have a 

 sufficiency of food for the worms. The labor would be light. 

 It would occupy, excepting for two or three weeks, a small 

 amount of time. It may be expected to yield as fair returns 

 as any branch of agriculture, which could be connected with 

 such an institution. It may, under some circumstances, be fa- 

 vorably introduced into other schools. The occupation would 

 prove as conducive to the intellectual and moral as to the phy- 

 sical health. The study of nature, in all her departments, is 



