318 THE CYNTHIA SILK-WORM. 
length when hatched from the egg, into a beautiful flying ` l 
creature large enough to be mistaken for a bird, and with — 
no more resemblance to the aforesaid animal than an eagle : 
has to a frog. a 
But now a final word as to the steps to be taken to induce — 
our people to take up this business of silk-culture. - Can it : 
be made to pay? is, I suppose, the main question. I need 4 
go into no statistics to show that enormous sums of money 
are sent to Europe every year to pay for silk imported; the d 
fact is notorious. Perhaps no nation in the world is 0 7 
addicted to the use of silken goods as the American. The — 
general government collects large sums of money in the 9 
shape of duties on silk, and we can hardly, at the moment, 
expect that it will do much to encourage its culture here. 
But I am confident that it can be made to pay without go 
ernment assistance. For, recollect, that we have the 
of the caterpillar growing already in the greatest abundance q 
among us, flourishing with a luxuriance which we sometimes 4 
find inconvenient; and of such easy culture that m two 
years we could have millions of bushes (and they should be 
kept as bushes) growing; and on soil, too, that would pro™ — 
ably produce. nothing else. This is an advantage that the 
early silk-growers did not possess, the raising of the pe 
berry being no such easy matter. Then the larva of = : 
Cynthia can, as I have said, be raised in open air, and the 
labor of the young, or of the feeble, is sufficient to me 
all the work required ; and thus the objection of the si 
price of labor,” so fatal to many an American pp | 
fails in this case. Even children may be induced to wee : 
few bushels of cocoons for the sake of pocket-money- * 
there is no use in raising cocoons if there are no ee for 
turers to purchase them. It seems difficult to account o 
the inertness of our capitalists in affairs of this kind. en : 
would suppose that with men possessed of wealth, the rep“ : 
tation of having been instrumental in introducing * 
Source of national industry, would be sufficient tO 

