Makcs# 7, 1884.] 
of ‘raw silk.’ The largest amount of raw silk 
produced in this country in any one year is 
given as thirty thousand pounds, in 1841. 
There is a tendency, on Mr. Wyckoff’s part, 
to intensify the dark side of silk-culture, and to 
depreciate the quantity and quality of silk pro- 
duced, — a tendency that is natural, and doubt- 
less unconscious, in an agent of an association 
of manufacturers. In most cases he makes the 
amount of silk raised much smaller than given 
by common report: but he does so in some 
instances by assuming that the term ‘raw silk,’ 
or ‘ raw-silk balls,’ in older works and reports, 
meant cocoons, or that there was ‘ neglect in 
discriminating between cocoons and raw silk ; ’ 
also by calculating that from ten to fourteen 
pounds of cocoons are necessary to make a 
pound of reeled silk. He by no means makes it 
clear that the term ‘ raw-silk balls’ really meant 
cocoons ; as it might apply to the twisted hanks 
of reeled silk, and the term ‘ cocoons’ was in use 
at that time. It is also certainly not justifiable 
to assume that the cocoons were necessarily 
fresh, as they are not thus handled and mar- 
keted. This he does, however, in his estimates 
(p. 24). Four pounds of choked cocoons to a 
pound of reeled silk is a liberal estimate, and 
would give us in 1766, when twenty thou- 
sand pounds of cocoons were produced, five 
thousand pounds of ‘raw silk;’ while the 
maximum amount Mr. Wyckoff allows in any 
one year prior to 1772 is ‘rarely exceeding a 
thousand pounds.’ While sometimes mislead- 
ing, therefore, this tendency to look on the 
dark side of silk-production has resulted in de- 
monstrating some exaggeration and mis-state- 
ment on the part of earlier writers; and the 
establishment of the truth or falsity of such 
statements, which have again and again been 
put forth, is one of the most meritorious fea- 
tures of the work. The most striking case in 
point is where (p. 25) the oft-quoted statement 
as to the export of ten thousand pounds of raw 
silk in 1759 is pretty conclusively shown to 
have been based upon such confusion of terms 
and mis-statements as above indicated. 
The summing-up of the present condition 
(1880) of silk-culture in the United States is 
worthy of quotation : — 
“An inquiry was attempted by the writer to as- 
certain the amount of raw silk raised in the United 
States during the census year ending June 30, 1880. 
It was soon determined that the expense of making 
such an investigation thoroughly would be more than 
the result could be worth. The only instances of the 
use of native silk in manufacture were at Williams- 
burg, Kan., and at Salt Lake City, Utah. The latter 
experiment proved financially a failure, the raw silk 
costing much more than the Asiatic product. It may 
SCIENCE. 
291 
however be stated in a general way, without preten- 
sion to accuracy, that the amount of reeled silk pro- 
duced in Utah territory during the year was less than 
a thousand pounds; the amount in Kansas was less 
than five hundred pounds, and the product in no 
other state was more than half as much. Missouri 
and North Carolina probably came next in amount 
of cocoons raised, and after those states Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey, the quantities produced there and 
in scattered localities throughout the country being 
inconsiderable.’’ 
With the exception of the penchant already 
alluded to, in favor of the manufacturing as 
against the productive part of the silk-industry, 
the author has done his work so well that it 
will remain as the best monograph on the sub- 
ject we possess. It is, in fact, a model report, 
the material for which has been gathered with 
care and comprehensiveness, and put together 
in such compact and concise form that it will 
serve as a cyclopaedia for all future reference, 
and render it extremely difficult for future 
writers to add any thing of consequence. 
We notice but one clerical error of any im- 
portance. ‘Julius Stanislaus,’ in the list of 
authors (p. 39), should be ‘ Stanislas Julien.’ 
He was a member of the French institute, and 
professor of Chinese literature in the College 
of France. 
No one can read this report without feeling 
that the silk-manufacture of the country has 
been built up to its present importance by our 
protective policy ; and at first blush this would 
seem to be a very strong argument in favor of 
that policy. But it has at the same time had 
the effect to throttle and destroy the production 
and concomitant reeling of silk. The one in- 
dustry is protected at the expense of the other. 
‘ Raw silk,’ as applied in the trade, is a mis- 
nomer: it should apply to the simple fibre 
upon the cocoon, whereas it really applies to 
the reeled silk, which is as much a manufac- 
tured article as any woven or sewing goods, 
having gone through an elaborate process by 
means of special skill and complicated machin- 
ery. On its successful establishment the silk- 
producing industry may be said to depend. 
Nothing is more clearly demonstrated by Mr. 
W yckoff’s report than that the chief cause of 
failure in this last, next to no reeling at all, has 
been the bad reeling of domestic silk. There 
was never any difficulty in rearing the worms, 
or in getting silk of the best quality ; and, when 
good reeling could be had, ‘ native silk was 
found to be of superior quality and strength ’ 
(p. 35). Why, therefore, it will be asked, 
should one kind of manufacture be protected 
from foreign competition, and not the other? 
If protection is beneficial to the people in the 
