SILK GROWER'S MANUAL. 203 



Although the art of making silk was for ages in- 

 volved in obscurity, it is now stripped in a great meas- 

 ure of the dark vestments in which it has been so long 

 and so mysteriously vailed ; specimens of sewing silk of 

 different colors, and of the most perfect beauty, have 

 been produced by N. B. Stacy, Esq., of Burlington, 

 Vt., in 1836, and that unaided by any experience, 

 and with no other instruction than that which books 

 afford. Mr. Stacy has succeeded in raising and manu- 

 facturing several pounds of sewing silk of superior 

 quality, yet ho had never before seen a silkworm, a 

 cocoon, or reel, and was himself astonished to find no 

 mystery in the business. The cocoons produced by him 

 were very large, requiring but little more than two 

 hundred to the pound. He is persuaded that the 

 main profit depends on full feeding, and making the 

 greatest possible amount of silk from every insect. 



In some parts of China, where the climate is more 

 suitable, the silkworms are suffered to remain at liberty, 

 on their native mulberry trees, where, uncontrolled and 

 unaided by man, they pass through their various muta- 

 tions among the branches. When the cocoons are 

 formed, they are collected from the trees, except a few 

 which are left for reproduction. 



The experiment of raising silkworms in the open air 

 was tried in Languedoc, France, by Mr. Martely, of ' 

 Montpelier, in the garden of the College of Jesuits, of 

 that city, in 1764. In that year twelve hundred francs 

 were appropriated, by the Minister of France, to defray 

 the expenses of the experiment, which succeeded per- 



