286 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



In the matter of silk-culture the Bureau has continued, as heretofore 

 since my charge of it, to aid the industry by the dissemination of eggs 

 and correct information to applicants from all parts of the country. 

 The interest in the subject has been even greater than in former years, 

 and this is essentially true of California, where the substantial encour- 

 agement of the State board of Silk-culture and of the State legisla- 

 ture, referred to in my last annual report, have borne fruit. Considerable 

 correspondence was had, particularly with Dr. C. A. Buckbee, the pres- 

 ident of said State board, in reference to Congressional aid by special 

 bill or otherwise, and an appropriation of $15,000 was made by Congress 

 for the encouragement and development of the industry. With this 

 increased means the Bureau will accomplish whatever can be accom- 

 plished to further the industry, and a special division of silk-culture 

 has been established, with Mr. Philip Walker in charge. Mr. Walker is 

 well equipped for the work, having had an extensive experience in France 

 and being enthusiastic in his faith as to the future of the industry in 

 tlie United States. I find no reason to change the views expressed on 

 this subject in previous reports and in my Manual, whether as to the 

 danger of overstimulating the inexperienced by monetary inducement 

 in the shape of bounty, or as to the ultimate need of a protective duty 

 on the reeled silk to give silk-production here any permanent and profit- 

 able footing on a sufficiently extensive scale. History shows that the 

 former methods have had but a transient influence that necessarily in- 

 volves reaction, whereas the latter is permanent in its benefits and in ac- 

 cordance with the prevailing protective sentiment of the country. Yet 

 silk-culture, by its peculiarities, offers to a large class employment which 

 they could not otherwise get, and will always attract attention, even 

 though the profit be trifling; and between extreme optimism on the 

 one side as illustrated by Mr. Buckbee's argument in memorials 

 to Congress, and extreme pessimism on the other as illustrated by a 

 published reply thereto, by Mr. John D. Cutter, of New York, there is 

 a moderate ground which should be carefully cultivated. For fifteen 

 years, now, I have carefully watched all that has been done, and have, 

 in my feeble way, aided to promote the industry, and have seen one 

 effort after another to establish it on anything like an extensive scale 

 fail, and always for the reason that capital and ordinary labor can find 

 more profitable employment. In studying the status of the industry in 

 South France the past summer I was also surprised to find it languish- 

 ing, and, as Professor Maillot, who has charge of the sericicultural 

 station at Montpellier, assured me, for the same reason that it has hith- 

 erto failed with us, viz : Inability to compete with the silk produced by 

 the cheaper labor of other countries and especially of China and Japan. 

 If the French silk-grower cannot well cope with this competition, with 

 the price of ordinary labor at 3 francs for men and 1J francs for women, 

 how caii we expect to! The chief hope, in addition to the advantages 

 we possess as indicated in the preface in the second edition of my 

 Manual, is in the Serrel reeling-machine, which, if it fulfills its present 

 promises, will revolutionize the silk industry and greatly subordinate 

 the question of labor. It is in this direction, then, that there is hope, 

 and fuller consideration of it will be found in the report. 



The field force of the Bureau is the same as a year ago, with the ad- 

 dition of Mr. F. M. Webster, who is stationed at La Fayette, Ind., and 

 who has been charged with the study of yet needed facts in connection 

 with the insects affecting our grain crops. As will appear from the 

 context, he has enabled me to prove beyond peradveuture the phyto- 

 phagie nature of the Joint-worms (genus Isosoma) affecting wheat and 

 other small grains, and thus still more fully to settle a question which 



