Simla, September, 1869. 

 MY DEA.K LOED BELMOEE, 



In continuation of my letter of the 13th ultimo, I enclose 

 a copy of a pamphlet by Captain Thomas Hutton, entitled 

 "Remarks on the Cultivation of Silk in India." A copy of the 

 pamphlet has also been despatched to Dr. Bennett. 



I remain, &c., 

 MAYO. 



[Enclosure.'] 



REMARKS on the cultivation of Silk in India, by Captain Thomas Hutton, 

 F.G.S., C.M.Z.S., Corresponding Member of the Agri-Horticultural 

 Society of India. 



(From the Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. Vol. I, part 4 ; 



new series.) 



To the Secretary of the Agricultural Society of India, 



MY DEAR SIR, 



In answer to your call to make a few observations on the cultivation 

 of silk in India, and with special reference to the Conference on this subject, 

 as reported in the Journal of the Society of Arts for 9th April, 1869 (No. 855 

 of Vol. 17), I now do myself the pleasure of sending a few remarks in support 

 of the many papers I have already published upon this subject ; but as from 

 former hard work, care, and sickness, I have become a somewhat prematurely 

 feeble old man, I must beg of the Society to kindly overlook the poverty of 

 detail, on the plea that " non sum qualis eram" and can no longer so fully enter 

 into the subject as I might have done some few years since. 



Keeping in view the fact, as I believe it to be, that the present movement 

 in England regarding silk, has for its object the opening up in India of new 

 localities for the introduction and cultivation of the silkworm, it appears to 

 me that the first thing to be done is to raise a warning voice, founded on the 

 failures that have already, in many districts, taken place against rushing 

 headlong into spectilations which from the very nature and constitutional 

 condition of the insects could only end in disappointment. The fact that 

 many such failures have already occurred, furnishes valid evidence of the 

 truth of my declarations, long since made, that such would assuredly be the 

 ultimate result. My remarks however only then served to provoke the dis- 

 pleasure and sneers of sundry individual 5 ?, on the ground that I was only a 

 meddling naturalist, and not a practical cultivator ; and it was further 

 hinted that even as a naturalist I was foolishly endeavouring to establish 

 the existence of several distinct species of Bombyx, while in reality, as they 

 sapiently insisted, there was but one. On this point, however, events have 

 fully justified my views. Thus naturalist or no naturalist, since one of my 

 opponents facetiously and elegantly remarked, " that the proof of the pudding 

 was in the eating," facts have in both instances declared that " magna est 

 veritas et prevaiebit ;" while the peculiar pudding that my friend was con- 

 cocting turned out by some mistake to be a hash. 



I was not, however, the first to point out that the climate of the North- 

 western Provinces was unsuitable to the constitution of the mulberry silk- 

 worm, Dr. Royle having come to the same conclusion long previous to the 

 time when I entered upon the subject. 



As the subject of silk cultivation in India is of vast importance, both to 

 this country and to England, and Mr. P. L. Simmonds not having fully 

 exhausted the subject, I shall endeavour to add what little information I may 

 have picked up since the publication of my last papers on the cultivation of 

 silk. 



