On the Manufacture of Silk. 287 



with the labor of the culture of the mulberry tree, and with the art 

 of rearing silk worms ; although we doubt not but many women or 

 females in our country, have gradually rendered themselves capable 

 of perfectly reeling their own cocoons j but we are every day be- 

 sieged by foreigners in quest of occupation and especially from 

 England and Scotland, whom we would be happy to introduce to silk 

 culturists if there was enough of silk in the country. Dr. Pasca- 

 lis had already told us, (Vol. I. p. 33.) however strange it might 

 appear, the fact is true, that a silk growing country always abounds 

 with competent manufacturers 5 but these do not seek for employ- 

 ment in their pursuit unless where a sufficient quantity of the best ma- 

 terials invites their enterprise. There is therefore, as is suggested 

 by the writer of the preface of the essays (p. 5.) no great difficulty 

 in procuring such hands; nor is it true that there is enough of the mul- 

 berry tree in the country; enough of silk-worms rearing, nor more 

 than it is generally supposed necessary to justify expensive establish- 

 ments of filature ; since we can prove quite the reverse to be the case 

 in the most commercial and agricultural sections of the United States, 

 as New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. 



In the vicinity of the capitol, we have a few groves of the tree, most- 

 ly left uncultivated ; but as a scattered plant, it is rare throughout, the 

 country, although fine orchards are already reared, or forming in the 

 eastern states, in Delaware and Pennsylvania ; nevertheless we hear 

 not much of silk growers and experimenters except from Connecticut. 

 In New York, an offer was made by Dr. P. of silk-worm seeds, gratis, 

 to all who could conveniently feed them ; but this offer has, we are 

 told, been attended to, by very few applicants. In an address of the 

 Pennsylvania Silk Society, published January last, we find, that an ap- 

 peal was made for the purchase from culturists of cocoons to be reel- 

 ed by competent operatives, which procured only a few pounds of that 

 production that was accepted, and this was of an inferior quality and 

 size, and badly fed ; and the rest had absolutely to be rejected. It is 

 not our task to account for all these disappoinments, unless by the 

 words, in the preface already quoted, alluding to " impositions of 

 pretenders to a knowledge they do not possess." (p. 17.) 



Mr. D'H. having visited Baltimore in search of cocoons assures 

 us, that he found there at least one hundred quintals of cocoons. Un- 

 fortunately this assertion is contradicted by a silk cuUurist of that city, 

 Mr. Gideon B. Smith, (vid. Gazette of Baltimore, Apr.) The error 

 was pardonable because the visitor has related that these cocoons 



