234 THE CALIFORNIA 



of counting his children, and plant one acre of mulberry 

 trees for each one of them, in the best mulberry land of 

 the farm ; in that way they will not cost them anything, 

 and I think that, on the contrary, they will be a benefit 

 to them ; they will anyhow be able to support them- 

 selves, and be independent from the product of their 

 acre. But some have told me that the children have 

 to go to school. I admit that, and particularly recom- 

 mend you to send them to school. But as the whole 

 process of feeding and cleaning the cocoons, etc., etc., 

 does not exceed two months, then they have ten months 

 in the year to go to school and I suppose this is about 

 sufficient for them ; besides that, the raising of silk is 

 also a useful school to go to. 



7th. The feeding and taking care of the worms and 

 cocoons, the reeling of silk all this work in silk 

 countries is done by the ladies, of all ages : this will 

 also be the case in California. Some say that our 

 California ladies do not like to work. I do not believe 

 it ; if some of them do not work as they ought to do, 

 the reason is that they have no profitable work to do 

 that suits their delicate natures ; but the moment they 

 will have that work, I guarantee you that they will 

 nearly all go into it, as in this kind of work a woman 

 can do it better than a man ; and they will then con- 

 tribute to enrich the country. This will certainly be a 

 great improvement and benefit to our young ladies, 

 who will certainly be proud to wear fine dresses from 

 silk raised by their own hands. 



8th. In France, where silk is a national culture, it is 



