36 THE CALIFORNIA 



A few years more, and we shall see, in our growing 

 State, silk manufactories as flourishing as our woolen 

 factories. 



SAN JOSE, October 21, 1864. 

 EDITOR CALIFORNIA FARMER : 



As I am receiving orders for silkworms' eggs, through 

 the post office, or otherwise, so often, I thought to write 

 you a few lines in a great hurry on that subject, think- 

 ing that they would be of great benefit to many of 

 your readers. Facts always need to be known, and I 

 will state nothing but facts that I can prove any time. 



In 1860, when I raised silk for the first time, in Cali- 

 fornia, I sent specimens of it and cocoons to all the 

 Fairs of the State, and the press spoke very highly about 

 it, but I heard a great many persons express thoughts 

 that it could not be done in this State, on account of 

 the price of labor. As here, in California, the price of 

 buying three or four acres of good land does not exceed 

 the price" of renting one acre in Europe, I thought this, 

 and employing Chinamen to do the work, would com- 

 pensate for the difference in the price of labor ; but, 

 besides that, I had so much t confidence in the culture 

 of silk in this State, that I have been thinking very 

 much about it, and, by taking advantage of our fine 

 climate, so much in favor of that culture, I changed 

 the old way of cultivating the silk-worm, and adopted a 

 system of cultivation that reduces the labor considera- 

 bly, and is so simplified that one man can cultivate as 



