43 



Cocoons thus treated may be sold to the merchants or to the 

 mills in bulk for proper reeling accordiug to the purpose for 

 which the raw silk is required, but wound or reeled silk, unless 

 so handled or prepared to meet the requirements of the throwster, 

 is merely of value as " waste" and of no value as " raw silk." The 

 markets of Europe are open for illimitable quantities, and the 

 nature of silk being unlike that of any other material there is no 

 danger of a substitute coming iuto competition but rather that as 

 civilization and trade extend so will the demand for silk increase. 

 It is to the production of cocoons that the attention of growers in 

 this Colony should be directed. 



There are many districts in the Colony suited to the rearing of 

 out-door silkworms. Among others not yet satisfactorily estab- 

 lished I have introduced three different species, the most valuable 

 of their class, now domesticated in the Colony, producing severally 

 one brood, two broods, and three broods in one season first 

 the " Tama," feeding on common English oak (quercus of several 

 varieties) furnishes light green silk of the most superior kind ; it is 

 the most valuable of all but the most difficult to rear; the two 

 latter, the " Perny," also feeding on the same kinds of oak as 

 the Tama, and the " Ailant " feeding on ailautus glandulosa, find 

 the climate and food singularly congenial, and thrive to perfection. 

 The natural increase of such prolific creatures multiplying two 

 and three times in one Australian season must necessarily yield 

 under proper conditions and intelligent management a prodigious 

 amount of cocoons. 



It is manifest that silk growing in these Colonies once estab- 

 lished or fairly set going would give lucrative employment to 

 large numbers of persons of both sexes, and tend greatly to 

 elevate as well as to enrich them ; time was when the peasants 

 of Europe were at least as unimpressionable and as difficult to 

 receive new ideas as our own wide and thinly spread popula- 

 tion is now supposed to be. Such as our colonists are, we may 

 at least consider that if worthy of being entrusted with political 

 power they are not unworthy, by reason of their want of intelli- 

 gence, of having such attention bestowed on their welfare as may 

 in some degree make up to them for the disadvantages under 

 which people who live in the bush necessarily labour ; in truth 

 our distant settlers have but few benefits conferred upon them, 

 and any new export raised in any part of the Colony enriches 

 not only the producers but is capital gained to the community. 



.Nor is the production of silk in these Colonies without interest 

 in regard to immigration. I have stated in another quarter my 

 conviction that the exhibition of Colonial grown silk and healthy 

 silkworm grain of good quality by authority of our Government 

 at some of the chief seats of this industry in Europe, would have 

 a powerful effect in directing the thoughts of enterprising and 

 energetic people towards these shores. I am sure that authentic 



