1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 247 



W. 



THE SILK CULTURE IN FRANCE. 



Deeming Ihem both interesting and useful, I subjoin some minutes 

 respecting the silk business in France from a high authority— Ure's 

 Dictionary of Manufactures. The product mentioned of Mr. Folzer 

 indicates a high degree of improvement in the management of the 

 worm. 



" Eighty pounds French, (88 lbs. Eng.) of cocoons are the average 

 produce from one ounce of Eggs ; or 100 from one ounce and a quar- 

 ter ; but Mr. Folzer of Alsace, obtained no less than 165 pounds." 



" The silk husbandry, as it may be called, is completed in France 

 within six weeks from the end of April, and thus affords the most 

 rapid of agricultural returns, requiring merely the advance of a little 

 capital for the purchase of the leaf. In buying up cocoons, and in 

 the filature, indeed, capital may often be laid out to great advantage. 

 The most hazardous period in the process of breeding the worms is 

 at the third and fourth moulting; for upon the sixth day of the third 

 age and the seventh day of the fourth, they in general eat nothincr at 

 all. On the first day of the fourth age, the worms proceedinor from 

 one ounce of eggs will, according to Bonafous, consume upon an 

 average twenty-three pounds and a quarter of mulberry leaves; on the 

 first of the fifth age they will consume forty-two pounds ; and on the 

 sixth day of the same age they acquire their maximum voracity, de- 

 vouring no less than 223 pounds. The space which they occupy on 

 the wicker tables being at their birth only nine feet square, becomes 

 eventually 239 feet. In general the more food they consume, the 

 more silk will they produce." 



" A mulberry tree is valued, in Provence, at from 6r/. to lOrf; it is 

 planted out of the nursery at four years of age; it is begun to be 

 stripped in the fifth year, and affords an increasing crop of leaves till 

 the twentieth. It yields from 1 cwt. to 30 cwt. of leaves, accordino- to 

 its magnitude and mode of cultivation. One ounce of silk worm eggs 

 is worth in France about 2J francs, (about 50 cents:) it requires for 

 its due development into cocoons about 15 cwt. of mulberry leaves, 

 which cost upon an average, 3 francs, (about 60 cents) per cwt. in a 

 favorable season. One ounce of eggs is calculated to produce, as I 

 have said, from 80 to 100 pounds of cocoons, of the value of one franc 



