Silk Manufacture. 47 



the close of the eighteenth century the production of silk 

 was wholly discontinued in Georgia. 



' There is no doubt that the cultivation of the cotton 

 plant, which in the mean time had been introduced, proved 

 so advantageous to the planters in Georgia, as to render 

 a further prosecution of the precarious and less profitable 

 silk product distasteful. 



'The rearing of silk worms had been an object of interest 

 in Carolina so early as the year 1732. This branch of 

 industry was undertaken principally by the small farmers, 

 many of whom produced from forty to fifty pounds' weight 

 of silk in the season. The endeavors to increase and perfect 

 its production in this colony were long persevered in. In the 

 year 1771, Louis de St. Pierre made a representation to gov- 

 ernment, that at the expense of his whole fortune he had 

 brought to perfection the art of making wine and the produc- 

 tion of silk at New Bourdeaux. His specimens of wine and 

 .silk, which were transmitted to England, were thouglit 

 deserving of notice by the patriotic Society for the Encour- 

 agement of Arts, which testified its approbation of M. St. 

 Pierre's exertions by presenting him with their gold medal, 

 accompanied with a premium of fifty pounds. Notwithstand- 

 ing this stimulus to further efforts, the quantities afterwards 

 raised were small, and the cost of production proved too 

 great for successful competition with silk of other countries. 



' A project was formed many years back to extend the cul- 

 ture of the white mulberry tree over all the states of the 

 American Union, and a considerable number was planted in 

 consequence. In the year 17S9 a very extensive nursery of 

 these trees was established near Philadelphia; another at 

 Princeton, in New Jersey ; one at New York, and a fourth 

 on Long Island. The states considered it politic to estab- 

 lish these nurseries, with the idea that in the then unsettled 

 state of Europe, emigrants from the silk countries might be 

 allured to a place where provision was already made for en- 

 abling them to pursue their accustomed employment. This 

 expectation does not appear in any case to have been 

 realized. 



' The project of rearing silk worms in the United States of 

 America has very recently been renewed, and a small package 

 of silk, the result of this attempt, was, early in the present 

 year (1831,) imported into Liverpool. 



' The president of the American Philosophical Society es- 

 tablished in Philadelphia, M. Du Ponceau, has for some time 

 been desirous of encouraging this branch of rural economy, 



