HISTORICAL SKETCH, 



OF THE 



CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE OF SILK. 



IN the third number of the present volume 

 of the Farmer and Gardener, the editor an- 

 nounced his intention of compiling a Silk 

 Manual. Since that time he has devoted 

 much of his leisure moments in reading such of 

 the various authors who have written upon the 

 subject, which were accessible to him, and 

 gleaning from them such things as appeared to 

 him to be necessary to be. known by persons 

 desirious of entering into the silk culture ; 

 and in the course of his readings, so many 

 circumstances of deep interest were developed 

 to him, that he thought it was due to the sub- 

 ject that the Manual should be preceded by 

 a brief historical sketch of the silk worm, the 

 origin of the silk manufacture, its introduc- 

 tion into Europe, and of its more recent in- 

 troduction into America. But as his limits are 

 circumscribed what he may say on the occa- 

 sion, must be considered more in the light of 

 an abstract, than of a historical view. 



The deep and absorbing interest, which per- 

 vades every section of our country, at the pre- 

 sent moment, and the spirit of inquiry, which 

 is every where abroad, upon the subject of the 

 Mulberry and silk culture, seemed to require 

 that the public curiosity should be gratified, 

 and its wants met in a way to direct that in- 

 quiry into profitable results. Than America, 

 stretching as it does from the Atlantic, across 

 an almost boundless territory, to the Rocky 

 Mountains, there is, perhaps, no country in the 

 world more happily adapted, by the advan- 

 tages of climate and soil, to the culture of the 

 Mulberry, which is " native born" with us, 

 the nurturing and feeding of the worm, or for 

 the making and manufacturing of the silk. With 

 those natural advantages, possessed by us in 

 so pre-eminent a degree, when the enterprise 

 and genius of our people are considered, it be- 

 comes a matter of surprise that a business of- 



fering so many inducements of pleasure and 

 profit, should have remained so long unim- 

 proved, and especially too, when so much 

 pains were taken by the government of the 

 mother country, to direct the attention of the 

 colonists to it from the period of its earliest 

 settlement, to just before the war of the revo- 

 lution. But that surprise must cease to oper- 

 ate, intensely, when the desire inherent in our 

 nature, of prefering present to prospective 

 gains is considered, and also, how natuial it 

 was for our forefathers to prefer the cul- 

 tivation of tobacco, a production which afford- 

 ed them an annual return, to that of the Mul- 

 berry and silk, whose avails to any considera- 

 ble extent, in the then state and knowledge of 

 the business, could not be looked for, for seve- 

 ral years. Thus situated, and desirous of rea- 

 lizing, at the end of each revolving year, the 

 fruits of their labor, they adhered to the culti- 

 vation of the " bitter weed," and their children 

 followed in their footsteps, until it became al- 

 most as cherished in their affections as house- 

 hold gods, and formed the chief staple of seve- 

 ral of the colonies. But it has thus happened 

 that adherence to its culture has so exhausted 

 the soil of its fertility, that many of its owners 

 have been driven to the necessity of departing 

 from the haunts of their childhood;, or of en- 

 tering into other systems of husbandry. In 

 this state of things, the editor desires to be an 

 humble co-adjutorin directing public attention 

 once more to the silk culture, in the hope that 

 he may, in part, be instrumental in placing the 

 means within the acquisition of all, of improv- 

 ing the soil on which they dwell, and thus re- 

 lieve them from the painful alternative of go- 

 ing in search of strange lands. Influenced by 

 such considerations, he was induced to under- 

 take the present task, and with * this hasty 

 outline of his object and intentions, he will 



