SILK GROWER'S MANUAL. 73 



obtained in the production of a given article by those 

 with whom the price of labor is dearer than with their 

 rivals. 



We know the price of labor in any country, other 

 things being equal, is usually according to the skill and 

 industry of those who perform it. 



We do not pay a mechanic or laborer a high price 

 for his labor merely because he chooses to ask it, but 

 because we know that the product of his labor will fur- 

 nish us with that which we know we can sell to a good 

 profit after paying him his wages. Suppose that the 

 daily wages of the East Indian is but a few cents per 

 day: will this advantage counterbalance his want of 

 skill and his destitution of the labor-saving machinery, 

 which pervades every branch of business in our own 

 free and happy country. 



The inventive genius of Americans is proverbial, and 

 who can doubt the application of skill and genius to 

 the production of silk ? Improvements made here, we 

 know will almost simultaneously pervade our whole coun- 

 try, and will quickly pass to England ; but to introduce 

 them into other silk-growing countries requires years, 

 if not generations. France, even polished France, has 

 been talking about internal improvements longer than 

 any other nation, and to this hour she has now consid- 

 erably little railroad in her whole dominions ; even the 

 little kingdom of Belgium far surpasses her in this 

 respect. 



In Italy and India it is almost impossible to introduce 

 improvements in any valuable degree ; indeed I appre- 



