SILK GROWER'S MANUAL. 85 



the culturist to make intelligent provision for the wants 

 and necessities of a large crop the subsequent season. 



But is it not a fact, that some portions of our older 

 States are almost depopulated ? Not only do our youth, 

 but many of our very best citizens, with heavy hearts, 

 desert their homes, their comforts, and their friends, to 

 seek, in new and distant States, the means of subsistence 

 and support for growing families, which the cultivation 

 of silk alone might have supplied in abundance at home. 



The advocates of silk are far from wishing to see other 

 products of our soil diminished ; but they do wish, by 

 their example and their precept, to add another to the 

 existing list of our productions ; they do wish to develop 

 our resources, and add to our population an hundred 

 fold ; they do wish to retain in the possession of our cit- 

 izens all the millions which are annually paid for foreign 

 silk ; they do wish to see productive industry pervade 

 every department of life, and the condition and comforts 

 of all our citizens improved ; and if ever an enterprise 

 promised joy and prosperity to the whole community, es- 

 pecially to the poor, this is that enterprise. How can 

 the production of a rich and valuable article, the use of 

 which pervades every class of society, which will give 

 employment to thousands and tens of thousands of in- 

 dustrious people, which will pour millions into our treas- 

 ury, how can this fail to better the condition of the poor 

 as well as of the rich ? 



I know that it is difficult to introduce to the extent of 

 millions, any new branch of industry among any class 

 of men it is not the work of a day ; patience and per- 



