PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION- 
That there exists just now a very general and widespread interest in 
the subject of silk-culture in the United States is manifest from the 
recent large increase in the correspondence of the Entomological Divis- 
ion in relation thereto, and from the demand made for this Manual. 
To avoid the disappointment that is sure to follow exaggerated and 
visionary notions on the subject, it may be well here to emphasize the 
facts that the elements of successful silk-culture on a large scale are at 
the present time entireiy wanting in this country; that the profits of 
silk-culture are always so small that extensive operations by organized 
bodies must prove unprofitable where capital finds so many more luera- 
tive fields for employment; that extensive silk-raising is fraught with 
dangers that do not beset less ambitious operations; that silk-culture, 
in short, as shown in this Manual, is to be recommended only as a light 
and pleasant employment for those members of the farmer’s household 
who either can not do or are not engaged in otherwise remunerative 
work. 
The want of experience is a serious obstacle to silk-culture in this 
country ; for while, as is shown in the following pages, the mere feed- 
ing of a certain number of worms and the preparation of the cocoons 
for market are simple enough operations, requiring neither physical 
Strength nor special mental qualities, yet skill and experience count for 
much, and the best results can not be attained without them. In Europe 
and Asia this experience is traditional and inherited, varying in different 
sections both as to methods and races of worm employed. With the 
great variety of soil, climate, and conditions prevailing in this country, 
pxperience in the same lines will also vary, but the general principles 
indicated in this Manual should govern. 
_ The greater value of labor here as compared with labor in the older 
silk-growing countries has been in the past a most serious obstacle to 
silk-culture in the United States, but conditions exist to-day that render 
this obstacle by no means insuperable. In the first place, compara- 
tive prices, as so often quoted, are misleading. The girl who makes 
mly twenty or thirty cents a day in France or Italy does as well, because 
: This preface was written in 1882, and some passages are omitted which had only 
temporary interest and which might be misleading to-day. 
—  16136—No. 9 1 1 
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