118 COMPLETE INSTRUCTION IN 



The first silk-mill in the United States was 

 erected in A. D. 1810, in Mansfield, Connecticut. 

 Fifty or sixty years go, there was quite an interest 

 in the South Atlantic States in the silk business. 

 In those days the government paid a bounty of fif- 

 teen cents on every pound of good cocoons, and one 

 dollar on every pound of reeled silk. Then they 

 used the Piedmontese reels, which are exceedingly 

 simple in construction, and can be operated by any 

 one of ordinary common sense.. At that time, silk 

 reeled on those reels brought six dollars a pound 

 in Philadelphia. Some few years previous to the 

 time here referred to, it is stated that scientific 

 and learned men considered the art of reeling so 

 very difficult a branch of knowledge to acquire, 

 that our government was asked to endow a school 

 with sixty thousand dollars, merely for the pur- 

 pose of teaching six young men to reel silk. 

 These young men were to attend three successive 

 summers, four months each summer. This state- 

 ment may be seen on the records of Congress. 

 (Surely we are a progressive people.) 



In 1839, a young woman went from Baltimore 

 to Philadelphia, paid the model filature that was 

 then operating there ten dollars for instruction, 

 stayed there five days, and learned to reel silk. 

 She then bought a reel, and returned home and 

 reeled her own cocoons. 



