54 
PRODUCTS FROM THE MULBERRY, ETC. 
Atlantic from Liverpool to Gibralter, and thence 
up the Mediterranean to Constantinople. He is 
now daily expected home, in improved health. 
We have no doubt, in March, our readers will 
again have the benefit of his comments on the 
various articles of the Agriculturist. And now, 
since the mask is removed, and they know their 
man and his whereabouts, we trust that they 
will not be less interested in his writings than 
heretofore. 
PRODUCTS FROM THE MULBERRY. 
Extracts from letters lately received from a 
veteran silk grower, now 84 years of age, who 
has spent the last 20 of his life in ineffectual en- 
deavors to introduce the extensive cultivation of 
silk into the United States. 
" It has long been hoped, that a cheaper and 
more rapid mode of separating the bark of the 
mulberry from the wood of the sprouts could be 
discovered, than the ordinary process of doing 
it by hand. I have now hopes that it may be 
effected in this town, next season, by appropriate 
machinery. But if it cannot, I feel confident 
that it may be effected by hand labor, in August, 
when the bark may be easily separated from 
the wood of young, annual sprouts, without in- 
terfering with the process of feeding worms 
with the foliage, which ought to be finished 
before that time, in New England. 
" Canton mulberries are decidedly the best kind 
for feeding worms. This is the kind used in 
China for making their best silk. They annually 
head down their mulberry, as appears by a set 
of 28 plates of paintings, one of which repre- 
sents the process of cutting down the mulberries 
close .to the ground, with a crooked knife, and 
carefully laying them aside for some use ; pro- 
bably to heat their furnaces for reeling the 
cocoons ; and, as fuel is scarce, and they save all, 
they probably strip the sprouts for bark silk, 
which is strong, durable, and from which good 
silk is made for sewings, handkerchiefs, or other 
purposes. 
" I had my mulberries headed down, a few days 
since, and covered in the field, for experimenting 
with next spring; and covered the stumps, to 
prevent the water from entering between the 
bark and wood, and injuring them. 
" If I do not succeed, by machinery, in separat- 
ing the bark from the wood, I am of opinion 
that, after the season of feeding, it may be done 
by hand ; submitted to the operation of rotting, 
to loosen the outside cuticle from the proper 
fibrous bark. It maybe dressed like flax, skeined, 
spun, and wove, like common raw silk, and used 
like raw silk, for any purposes. 
" If such a process can be made to succeed, the 
seed can be sown in drills, or broadcast ; and it 
is thought that as many pounds of bark silk 
may be taken from an acre of ground, as of flax. 
If this can be successfully carried out, it may be 
the most profitable business of agriculture ever 
known in America." Daniel Stebbins. 
Northampton, Mass., Nov. 19th, 1849. 
Accompanying these letters, were several 
specimens of the bark silk, so much like the tow 
of silk, as to be easily mistaken for it. They 
tend to confirm the recently-acknowledged prin- 
ciple, that the animal economy appropriates — not 
materially changes — the proximate substances, or 
principles, pre-existing in the plants which have 
contributed to its support. 
We hope yet to see our rural population exten- 
sively engaged in the various pursuits of rearing 
the mulberry and silkworm, and converting their 
products into useful, tasteful, and remunerating 
fabrics. At the rate we are going on, importing 
200,000 to 300,000 Europeans annually, we must 
take care to introduce their arts and employ- 
ments with them, or our national balance wheel 
will soon be sadly out of joint. 
INCREASE OF FERTILITY FROM SHADING 
THE SOLL. 
Every observing person must have noticed the 
unusual productiveness of soil which has been 
closely protected for a time. The earth under 
a building, the northerly side of a wall or large 
log, is itself a valuable manure. How is this 
result or change in the character of the soil pro- 
duced? Will some of our scientific readers ex- 
plain ? 
We know that such earth contains large quanti- 
ties of nitrate of potash, (saltpetre,) and nitrate 
of ammonia, and it is frequently used for ex- 
tracting saltpetre in the manufacture of gun- 
powder. Does it not contain other salts, absorb- 
ed from the atmosphere, and developed in the 
soil, in conseqnence of its peculiar position, all 
of which are highly favorable to the growth 
of vegetation? And how can this result be 
made of practical benefit to agriculture? We 
have heard much of the beneficial effects of 
Gurneyism (covering meadows and pastures 
with straw, or refuse vegetables.) Has this 
been tried, and with what result in this country ? 
Feeding Qualities of Pigs. — A correspondent 
informs us, he bought, in September, two Berk- 
shire pigs, six weeks old. He kept them in a 
warm pen, and gave them the slops from a small 
family, intending them for breeding. On looking 
at them, the last of winter, he found them too fat 
for breeding, and accordingly slaughtered them, 
at eight months old, when one was found to weigh 
240 lbs., and the other 278 lbs., dressed. 
Another says, a sow, mostly Berkshire, was 
butchered on the 9th of January last, in Conn., 
at precisely a year old, and dressed 553 lbs. A 
neighbor has just slaughtered two swine, at about 
14 months old, both kept together and fattened 
in the same pen. One dressed 478 lbs; the 
other 247 lbs. The lightest had eaten much 
more than the heaviest, and when the last had 
filled himself from the trough, the other, though 
eating faster than his chum, was always on hand 
for the remaining food ; and a very coarse brute, 
too. So much for breed. 
Long and Short Teams.- — Nowhere else in the 
United States, except in the vicinity of Wilming- 
ton Del., and from there to Philadelphia, have 
we seen the curious notion prevail of hitching 
four or five horses in a string, to a cart or wagon. 
