40 



have a number of spare drawers ready for their 

 accommodation. 



" The feeding frames of the Messrs. Terhoeven, 

 of Philadelphia county, are four feet square, and 

 are fixed to upright posts; they have two sets in 

 one room, with passages between and around 

 them. This size enables a person to reach any 

 point of them. Over the shelves, are frames or 

 shelves placed on elects, and filled with split 

 rattans at proper distances to permit the litter 

 from falling through." 



It is obvious to us that all costly expenditures, 

 either in the construction of a laboratory or in 

 that of the shelves for feeding the worms on, are 

 not only unnecessary, but would be a wanton 

 waste of means and time. The great object of an 

 American culturist should, and doubtless, will be, 

 to make money to study utility instead of orna- 

 ment profit instead of display, in a word, the 

 healthful accommodation and profitable employ- 

 ment of his worms. If these be his objects, they 

 can all be attained for a very small comparative 

 amount, and if they be not, he had better not en- 

 gage in the business, but leave it to the posses- 

 sion of those who will enter into it with a view 

 of benefitting themselves and their country. 



To those who shall be thus influenced, there 

 can be no difficulty either in providing a house 

 or the necessary fixtures ; for they may be both 

 provided with the least possible expense : the 

 plainer and more simple the better. The fact is, 

 there is a mystery thrown around these matters, 

 as there are around every thing else in European 

 works, calculated, if not so intended, to create 

 difficulties where none exist, and to give to very 

 simple operations the air of complication. We 

 will not say that these things are done with a 

 view of repressing the spirit of competition of 

 preventing rivalry for we have alike too much 

 respect for ourself and charity for others, to be- 

 lieve in the existence of motives so unworthy, 

 unless upon the most indisputable authority ; but 

 the effect of the elementary treatises of European 

 origin, upon this, and many other branches of in- 

 dustry, are so mixed up with unprofitable phi- 

 losophical speculations, so embarrassed with im- 

 practicable theories, and the ostentatious display 

 of learning, as to deter a plain common sense 

 man from engaging in them. Whereas, when 

 they come to be stripped of the verbiage, and to be 

 divested of the fustian, with which they are de- 

 corated,they are very plain concerns just such as 

 an ordinary, enterprising, industrious farmer, 

 might lay hold of, with decided advantage to him- 

 self, his family, and the nation at large. 



Why need there be such parade about building 

 a house for the worms to perform their labors in ? 

 In their native state, the forests of India were their 

 dwellings, and the canopy of heaven their only 

 cocoonery, or laboratory. There, there were no ve- 

 netian shutters, no costly wicker or latticed work 



shelves, no hygrometers nor hydrometers, and 

 yet they lived on mid sunshine and rain and thun- 

 der and lightning. True they were then in their 

 wild and native state true also it is, experience 

 has shown that since domesticated by man, and 

 furnished with dwellings, they have yielded more 

 and better silk ; have suffered less from their 

 natural enemies : but then, we maintain, the more 

 simple and plain their accommodations are, the 

 better. In proof of this, we would mention that 

 in Italy, France, Bavaria, and other European 

 countries, where the silk culture forms a materi- 

 al branch of husbandry, the hovel of the peasant, 

 the barns, kitchens and all other out-buildings of 

 the opulent, are each converted into laboratories 

 for the time being. And such also, is the fact 

 in the New England states. There, those who 

 have not the means of constructing cocooneries, as 

 they there term the feeding houses of the worms, 

 give them, during the short period of their labors, 

 situations in their dwellings, barns and every oth- 

 er place on their respective farms, calculated to 

 afford room and shelter. In corroboration of 

 what we have just said, we will quote from Mr. 

 Cobb's excellent Manual, the observations which 

 he makes upon this head. He says : 



" European laboratories have been constructed 

 with great care and expense; but however con- 

 venient these may be, they are by no means ne- 

 cessary to success in rearing silk worms ; almost 

 any building will answer for that purpose. I 

 have reared them myself with success in a barn, 

 in my cellar, kitchen, and other rooms of rny 

 dwelling-house, and in the lower story of Tre- 

 mont House, in Boston." 



It was found in France that the cocoons 

 brought to market by the peasants, raised in hov- 

 els so full of cracks as easily to be seen through, 

 and to admit the air freely, were richer and 

 heavier than those raised in palaces and in the 

 confined rooms of dwellings in cities. 



We infer from all that we have seen and read 

 upon the subject, that all to be aimed at in the 

 erection of a laboratory, is, to put up a plain, 

 cheap, substantial house, sufficiently large to ac- 

 commodate the number of worms you contem- 

 plate feeding; to be provided with windows that 

 will admit the air and exclude the sun; with 

 fire-places or stoves, as may be most convenient, 

 so that a proper temperature may be kept up at 

 all times, and especially when it rains, as damp- 

 ness exercises a pernicious influence over the 

 worms, in generating a noxious effluvium, detri- 

 mental to their health. 



Upon the subject of a laboratory or cocoonery, 

 and the necessary fixtures, we shall further copy 

 from the excellent essays of our intelligent towns- 

 man, Gideon B. Smith, Esquire, whose experi- 

 ence and observation entitle his opinions to eve^ 

 ry possible consideration. 



