SILK GROWER'S MANUAL. Ill 



advantages of silk culture in California, if I had time to 

 write, but the impulse is given, and as I am posted in 

 the progress and what is going on about silk culture in 

 California, I am able to say with assurance that expe- 

 rienced silk cultivators will come next season from 

 France, to raise it here on a very large scale. I was 

 visited by the representatives of two of the largest silk 

 houses in Europe on their returning from China, where 

 they purchased hundreds of millions of silkworms' eggs. 

 Being practical silk growers and manufacturers, they 

 understood very well the superiority of our climate, and 

 were extremely pleased with what I have been able 

 to show and tell them, as they can appreciate the truth 

 of it. We must do all we can to encourage everybody 

 to raise silk, because this article is different from many 

 other products ; it cannot be overdone. We do not fear 

 any opposition, for if it were possible that by some 

 miracle the whole State should be covered next year 

 with full grown mulberry trees, and most of her inhabit- 

 ants engaged in raising silk, you can not prove to me 

 that it would lower the price on silk of two cents per 

 pound, as we have the whole world for a market. This 

 article, on the contrary, is bound to rise; it advanced 

 last season twenty-five per cent., on account of the 

 disease in silkworms in Europe, in consequence of their 

 wet summers. This is the reason they are obliged to 

 obtain eggs from countries where the worms are not dis- 

 eased, so as to keep up the stock and obtain their silk 

 crops. 



I have sold all my eggs for Europe, and they are 



