136 THE CALIFORNIA 



mittee, and they induced him to commit to writing some 

 of the leading facts, together with some remarks by 

 Hentsch, which are hereby submitted, in the hope that 

 they may not be lost or forgotten. 



The Committee deem themselves not oversanguine 

 of the great results to flow from the introduction of this 

 important branch of industry into our State, when they 

 hope and believe the day is not far distant when a grat- 

 ified people will, through their Legislature, offer some 

 public recognition of the services rendered by Mr. 

 Prevost. Awarded a gold medal. 



FACTS ON SILK IN CALIFORNIA. BY L. PREVOST. 



After I had passed a summer in California, I came 

 to the conclusion that it was one of the very best coun- 

 tries in the world for raising silk, as well as wine, etc., 

 etc., but the difficulty was to obtain, first, mulberry 

 trees, and, afterwards, silkworm eggs. In 1863 or '64, 

 I had occasion to meet with Mr. Henry Hentsch, who 

 had the same opinion of our beautiful climate, and its 

 adaptability for silk cultivation, and he, himself, began 

 a conversation on that important subject. .From tbat 

 conversation was born the culture of silk in California. 

 Mr. Hentsch imported the mulberry seed from France, 

 from which I raised a number of fine mulberry trees. 

 Mr. Hentsch was informed as soon as the trees were 

 of some size, and he made arrangements to import silk- 

 worm eggs from China. They arrived here dead it 

 was impossible to hatch one of them. The following 

 year he imported another lot from the same place, and 



