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CULTIVATION OE SILK. 



THE HON. SECEETAEY, ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY, NEW SOUTH 

 WALES, to THE COLONIAL SECEETAET. 



Acclimatisation Society of ISTew South Wales, 

 Sydney, 7 June, 1870. 



SIE, 



This Society having exerted itself to promote the estab- 

 lishment of silk culture in this Colony, has recently received 

 from His Excellency the Viceroy of India, a valuable stock of 

 silkworms, and most useful information relative thereto. I wish 

 to submit the despatches containing this information for your 

 personal inspection, in the belief that in the interests of the 

 Colony you may think proper to publish a selection from the 

 papers. 



To direct attention and impart a knowledge of facts about the 

 rearing of silkworms, the present time seems very appropriate. 

 First, the extremely critical condition of all European breeds 

 gives the gravest reason to fear that if they experience adverse 

 weather another year the whole may become utterly extinct, or 

 for all practical purposes so unreliable for stock to breed from, 

 that all the principal European silk producing countries will of 

 necessity be compelled to have recourse to importations of eggs 

 from other countries where the disease affecting the silkworms 

 does not exist, or is less severe. Secondly, the well known 

 operations of Mr. Brady in the Colony have already caused con- 

 siderable attention to be directed to Australia; and the very 

 remarkable system originated by that gentleman, and carried on 

 from time to time during several years under the observations 

 of this Society, of producing a succession of daily broods and 

 crops of silk during a great part of our long season, is highly 

 encouraging. This very important fact, so honorable, and, if 

 rightly understood, so calculated to do good to the Colony, was 

 thus commented on by Mr. Dickins, President of the Silk Supply 

 Association of London, at a public meeting held at Coventry, 

 " the fact of producing silk day by day was most wonderful, and 

 was what was not done in any other part of the world "; and 

 Mr. Chadwick, M.P., at the same meeting took occasion to say, in 

 reference to this Australian plan, "that the daily production 

 exhibited an improvement in the production of silk which would 

 be as important a fact as ever occurred in the silk trade." 

 Thirdly, there are now most excellent varieties of silkworms in 

 the Colony, from which beginners could be supplied, wherewith 

 to commence the creation of a new export. 



