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than in any other country, and not have to sell it cheaper: 

 on the contrary, California silk, by the superiority of 

 the climate, is bound to be a superior article, and con- 

 sequently will command the market in all parts of the 

 world. This question having been settled we will leave 

 it, and go on to the advantages which we have over 

 others. 



Third We come to a great point that deserves at- 

 tention. It is, as I have said in some of my previous 

 letters, that in France and Italy, with all the care which 

 the climate forces them to give to the worms, they are 

 more or less diseased ; and, in their very good years, 

 they cannot calculate their losses at less than twenty-five 

 or thirty per cent.; and, in bad years, fifty per cent.; and 

 I have been told that in very bad years the losses have 

 been as high as seventy-five in one hundred worms. 

 What do you think of that ? Should not this fact alone 

 be enough to make everybody wish to go into the silk 

 business,when we consider a moment the power of our fine 

 climate on the silkworms, that even after treating them 

 here very roughly, we have no disease to observe, con- 

 sequently no losses, and every worm makes his cocoon ? 

 It is very simple and easy to understand why it is so, 

 because they have there, during the feeding time, rain, 

 thunder and lightning which are the enemies of the 

 worms ; whereas here, as everybody knows, at the time 

 of feeding, (June) we have nothing of the kind, nothing 

 to create disease among them. That is where our 

 superiority over other countries lies. We have a fine 

 and regular dry season at that time, and it is this regu- 



