AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



9 



PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aoricui-tubal Warehouse.) 



VOL. XVIII.3 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1839. 



[NO. 



N. E. FARMER. 



NOTICES OF FARMS, MINUTES BY THE 



WAY, &c. 



Mulberry Trees — Silk Business — Call at General 



A. Holman's Farm, Bolton, Mass. 



Passing through Bolton, we availed ourselves of 

 the opportunity to call upon Gen. A. Holman, who 

 has had considerable experience in raising and set- 

 ting out mulberry trees, feeding worms, &c. He 

 commenced his operations six or seven years since, 

 ind began to set out his trees for the purpose of 

 producing silk. His farm is admirably adapted for 

 his business, there being but few places in our es- 

 imation, which are more favorable. It is situated 

 m the eastern side of an elevated and extensive 

 well of land, commonly known by the name of 

 Bolton hill," from whose summit a great extent of 

 ' eautiful country is visible : the soil is generally n 

 itrong loam and rather rocky. Ho l.as from 5 to 

 [000 trees, which have been planted at different 

 jmes from 5 to 7 years : many of them stand from 

 I to 10 feet distant from each other, and have low 

 leads : the land is laid down to grass. It is now 

 )ur years since he began to feed worms. Two 

 9ars ago, about 50 lbs. of manufactured sewing 

 Ik was produced: last year 55 lbs. of reeled silk, 

 hich was sold for $6 per lb., which witli the boun- 



from the State of $1 50 per lb., would amount 



the sum of $412 50. The quantity of silk this 

 ijar cannot be ascertained, as all the eggs which 

 lin be produced from his cocoons have been con- 

 Ijcted for by a house in Philadelphia. The quan- 

 |,y of cocoons is supposed to be not quite so large 



it was last year. He will probably have from 

 |i to 25 millions of eggs, which will .be worth six 

 |nes as much as what tlie silk would bring. His 



Ijrms are a very superior variety, called the " brown 

 immoth," which he thinks the best of all varie- 

 s for our climate : they have given universal sat- 

 action wherever they have been used. Two 

 Dps of worms have been produced this season : 

 3 first were hatched out the last of May : the 

 :ond the 4th of July. Two crops he thinks is 

 that can be profitably raised in our climate. 

 lere is no difficulty in keeping t.iie eggs from 

 tching before they are wanted. They are put 

 .0 a demijohn and corked up, but not perfectly 

 ht, as that would destroy the vitality of tlie eggs ; 

 y are then placed in a cool part of the cellar on 

 ' bottom : in this way they may be retarded un- 

 late in the summer. He is satisfied now that he 

 J injured his trees by stripping the leaves too 

 se before they had attairied sufficient strength 

 d vigor to bear it, and that they havij been much 

 nted and retarded by it. This is the reason why 

 : quantity of silk has not increased with the age 

 the trees. The trees are of the common white 

 iety, and do not give satisfaction on account of 

 smallness of the leaf, as it requires much time 

 gather them in comparison with some other vari- 



He thinks highly of the morus multicaulis for the 

 soutiiern climate, and has many growing for sale. 

 They will not probably be profitable in this region, 

 if we may judge from the ill success which has at- 

 tended their cultivation this year. We hear of 

 some growers who will not raise so many trees as 

 they planted in the spring, and others who are much 

 disappointed in the number calculated upon ; they 

 either planted them too deep, or cut them up too 

 much, or it was too cold or too wet, or they were 

 injured in the cellar, or some plaguy thing or other 

 befel them. We have seen many fields from which 

 but little foliage could be spared, even as late as 

 the first of August : they will do for the southern 

 climate, but not for ours. 



Gen. Holinan has converted the upper part of 

 one of his barns into a convenient cocoonery, 50 

 feet by 35, well ventilated on every side, and filled 

 with shelves in six tiers, capable of accommodating 

 500,000 worms. An elderly and infirm man and 

 his wife have performed most of the labor in tend- 

 ing the worms and gathering the leaves: some extra 

 help was given during the last stages, when an in- 

 creased quantity of leaves are necessary. They 

 v.ere bu.sy in stripping the cocoons from the bunches 

 of straw on w^hich they had spun. We have fre- 

 quently seen branches of trees with the leaves on, 

 nut up for the worms to spin upon, but the straw 

 appeared to us much better, as the cocoons are 

 more easily taken off: a handful of straw is tied at 

 one end, and cut off the other end the length of 

 the distance between the shelves, and set up be- 

 tween them on the tied end, forming an inverted 

 cone ; the worms crawl up and fill the straw. 



Gen. Holman spoke with confidence concerning 

 the silk business, and feels encouraged by the suc- 

 cess which has attended his first efforts, to pursue 

 it, and thinks it will ultimately prove profitable. It 

 would be wrong in calculating the profits of the 

 business, to take as a guide the produce of the 

 three past years : if the rent of the land, interest of 

 the money expended for trees, labor, &c., were all 

 reckoned, it would probably appear that the proceeds 

 of the business have fallen considerable short of 

 the interest of the outlay and labor. It should be 

 remembered that a mulberry orchard does not be- 

 gin to pay until from 7 to 10 years of age, although 

 we have had statements to the contrary, which have 

 greatly misled those who were disposed to embark 

 in the business. When we had our first silk fever, 

 five or six years since, multitudes were urged <m 

 by false and exaggerated accounts, expecting to 

 realize enormous profits in four or five years ; but 

 they soon found out that it was easier to make cal- 

 culations on paper than to carry thein into practice. 

 The severe winters which destroyed the young 

 trees, and a little experimenting, disheartened indi- 

 viduals as well as companies, and they saw the 

 prospect of a golden harvest vanish like dew before 

 the morning sun. 



S. V. S. Wilder, Esq., of New York, who owns 

 a large tract of valuable land on the north and west 



business, and has always been strong in the belief 

 that it would be one of great profit He was for 

 many years a resident of France and engaged in 

 the silk trade, and well acquainted with tne manner 

 of rearing worms and the production of silk in that 

 country. To encourage others in the business — he 

 set out with much care four years since, 4 or 5000 

 trees on a part of his farm near the bottom of the 

 hill. The soil is of an inferior quality — a poor 

 sandy loam on a gravelly bolton). The trees were 

 set, we believe, twelve feet apart ; the holes dug 

 three feet square, and great pains taken to insure 

 their growth : the trees were three or four years 

 old when taken from the nursery. This orchard 

 has proved a failure: most of the trees are either 

 dead or badly stunted. One cause of the failure is 

 the poverty of the soil, and another, the severity of 

 the winters. 



We have seen in our perambulations great quan- 

 tities of youug trees which the owners call Alpine, 

 that are nothing more than the Brousa mulberry. 

 The Brousa will, we think, prove a valuable variety 

 for our climate. 



Bolton contains many well cultivated farms : we 

 noticed one owned by Mr Moses Greenleaf, where 

 scarcely a weed could be found ; all his crops were 

 perfectly clean — quite a contrast to most of the 

 farms which have coine under our observation. It 

 is often the case with a field of potatoes, that they 

 are choked and over-topped with pig-weeds, roman 

 wormwood, and other vile weeds, very much to the 

 injury of the crop, and against the character of the 

 owner. ' This farm is an exception to the great 

 majority — we therefore take this opportunity to 

 commend the proprietor for his industry in thus em- 

 ploying his boys and himself at odd hours in clean- 

 ing his grounds, thereby benefiting his hogs, crops 

 and farm, and setting a good example to his neigh- 

 bors. Wo saw on this place the finest piece of 

 onions that we ever laid our eyes upon : there must 

 be nearly 150 bushels on about a quarter of an acre. 

 When his crop is gathered we hope to give an ex- 

 act account of the number of bushels and rods of 

 land, together with his mode of cultivation, &c., to 

 Ihe public through the N. E. Farmer. We observ- 

 ed here ?&iie very early Canada corn, which was 

 then ripe or nearly so (Aug. 29th.) It was planted 

 thick, and believed By the owner that as much was 

 obtained as from a larger -variety, [we doubt it,] and 

 there was no fear of losing his crop from an early 

 frost. He has some excellent varieties of early 

 apples, which we have not before seen, that would 

 command a high price in our market. We find in 

 almost every town, some fine variety of native ap- 

 ple, peculiar to the place, which would be highly 

 prized if known by our horticulturalists and market 

 men. If half the money which has been spent in 

 importing foreign apples, could be spent in collect- 

 ing some of our own fine native sorts that are scat- 

 tered over the country, we should have a larger ac- 

 cession to our I'st of fine apples than has been ever 

 made before. 



