*5 
'THE CULTIVATOR. 
45 
fresh and tender leaves of the mulberry; not more than hall a dozen 
leaves to one thousand worms will then be required ; but afterwards 
they will each devour a leaf. When the leaves become dry, or are 
eaten up, fresh ones must be given them, taking care not to put on 
so many as to smother the worms or obstruct their motions. For 
the first twenty days, they must be fed three times a day, and after 
that as often, day and night, as their food is destroyed or wilted. 
The worms must be kept free from dampness, whether in their 
food or rooms; and they must not be too much crowded; a thou¬ 
sand full grown ones will be sufficient for a table three feet by 
twelve. 
About the sixth, tenth, sixteenth, and twenty-second days, the 
worms will shed their skins and become sickly. At these periods 
they abstain from food, and should be fed scantily at first, and then 
not at all, till they recover. Sometimes they become afflicted with 
incurable diseases ; in these cases they will be known by voiding a 
yellow liquor, and must be immediately separated, and, as well as 
the dead ones, thrown away. The disease is infections, and there- 
fore particular care should be used in preventing its progress. 
Throughout the whole period of feeding them, their litter should 
be carefully taken away : at first, this need not be done often ; but 
during the last stage of their growth it must be done as frequently 
as possible. Indeed, the Utmost care should always be taken to 
keep them clean, and give them fresh food, and pure air. 
When the worms are ready to spin, they will cease to wander 
about, becoming of the color of a new egg, nearly transparent, and 
will search for things upon which to fasten their cocoons. When a 
considerable number have this appearance, branches, twigs, and 
leaves, must be put up around the stages or table, upon which they 
will mount and spin their balls. This generally happens from the 
thirtieth to the thirty-sixth day. Various substances are used for 
the worms to spin upon, but Mr. G. B. Smith (lrom whose circular 
we have taken much valuable information) considers cliesnut leaves 
the best. These, when dry, curl up, and thus form a place of de- 
posite for the silk ball. Twigs must be broken off, with the leaves 
on them, and placed around the stage. 
The worms, after beginning to spin, require no further attention 
till the cocoons are completed. The worms that begin to spin each 
day should be kept separate, and in eight days from the commence¬ 
ment of spinning the cocoons, they should be removed. Those from 
which eggs are expected, must be placed in a dry room, upon white 
paper, in rows about a foot apart. The worm will remain in its 
chrysalis state ten or twelve days, and then come out a grey miller. 
In a short time the females will commence laying upon the paper, 
each one laying about 450 eggs, which are at first of a sulphur color, 
but soon turn to a dark lilac ; those which remain of a yellow hue 
are useless, and may be thrown away. The good ones must be 
kept in a dry, cool place, in a temperature of forty or fifty degrees.— 
In a high temperature, they might hatch. 
The cocoons, from which silk is to be obtained, must be stripped 
of the Jloss, or loose outer coating, and the insect destroyed ; other- 
erwise it would soon pierce the ball and destroy the silk. The in¬ 
sect may be killed either by baking the balls for half* an hour in an 
half heated oven, or, which is the better mode, by steaming them for 
a few minutes in a common kitchen steamer. Af er the cocoons 
are thus prepared, from thirty to fifty of them, in proportion to the 
size of the thread to be spun, may be placed in a kettle of water 
heated to such a degree that the hand may be barely kept in with¬ 
out scalding, at which temperature it must be constantly kept— 
Twigs are then to be stirred about in the vessel till a sufficient num¬ 
ber of fibres is caught to make the thread you wish ; and as the 
fibres break they are to be renewed, so as to keep the thread even. 
In this manner the silk may be reeled off with a common reel, and 
afterwards twisted in the manner required, by a common spinning 
wheel. After this, it should be boiled four or five hours in soap and 
water, and rinsed with clear water, to discumber it of the gum, 
which naturally adheres to it. The silk is now ready for use, and 
may be dyed any colour to suit the consumer. 
In this report, the committee have not aimed to make an elaborate 
or novel treatise on the cultivation of the mulberry, or the rearing of 
the silk-worm ; but merely to exhibit, in plain language, the more 
general and important directions in relation to those subjects, for 
the aid of the farmer and beginner, who may desire to embark, on a 
limited scale, in this, to our country, new and profitable branch of 
business. Other more minute rules will be easily learned by expe¬ 
rience, and others of a more nice and more abstruse character, may 
be gathered from books written upon the subject in other countries. 
B. DRAKE, 4 
E. D. MANSFIED, > Committee. 
CHARLES FOX, ^ 
Yoimg’ MesVs Department, 
THE PLEASURES AND ENJOYMENTS CONNECTED WITH THE PURSUIT 
of science. — Continued from "page H5.) 
With the help of his microscope he can enter into a world un¬ 
known to the ignorant, and altogether invisible to the unassisted eye. 
In every plant and flower which adorns the field, in every leaf of the 
forest, in the seeds, prickles, and down of all vegetables, he per¬ 
ceives beauties and harmonies, and exquisite contrivances, of which, 
without this instrument, he could have formed no conception. In 
every scale of a haddock he perceives a beautiful piece of net-work, 
admirably contrived and arranged, and in the scale of a sole a still 
more diversified structure, which no art could imitate, terminated 
with pointed spikes, and formed with admirable regularity. Where 
nothing but a speck of mouldiness appears to the naked eye, he be¬ 
holds a forest (if mushrooms with long stalks, and with leaves and 
blossoms distinctly visible. In the eyes of a common fly, where others 
can see only two small protuberances, he perceives several thou¬ 
sands of beautiful transparent globes, exquisitely rounded and po¬ 
lished, placed with the utmost regularity in rows, crossing each oth¬ 
er like a kind of lattice-work, and forming the most admirable piece 
of mechanism which the eye can contemplate. The small dust that 
covers the wings of moths and butterflies, he perceives to consist of 
an infinite multitude of feathers of various forms, not much unlike 
the feathers of birds, and adorned with the most bright and vivid 
colours. In an animal so small that the naked eye can scarcely dis¬ 
tinguish it as a visible point, he perceives a head, mouth, eyes, legs, 
joints, bristles, hair, and other animal parts and functions, as nicely 
formed and adjusted, and endowed with as much vivacity, agility, 
and intelligence, as the larger animals. In the tail of a small fish, 
or the foot of a frog, he can perceive the variegated branching of the 
veins and arteries, and the blood circulating through them with 
amazing velocity. In a drop of stagnant water he perceives thou¬ 
sands of living beings, of various shapes and sizes, beautifully form¬ 
ed, and swimming with wanton vivacity like fishes in the midst of 
the ocean. In short, by this instrument he perceives that the whole 
; earth is full of animation, and that tlieie is not a single tree, plant, 
or flower, and scarcely a drop of water, that is not teeming with 
life, and peopled with its peculiar inhabitants. He thus enters, as it 
were, into a new world, invisible to other eyes, where every object 
in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms presents a new and 
interesting aspect, and un<olds beauties, harmonies, contrasts, and 
exquisite contrivances, altogether inconceivable by the ignorant and 
unreflecting mind. 
In the invisible atmosphere which surrounds him, where other 
minds discern nothing but an immense blank, he beholds an assem¬ 
blage of wonders, and a striking scene of Divine Wisdom and Om¬ 
nipotence. He views this invisible agent not only as a material but 
as a compound substance—compounded of two opposite principles, 
the one the source of fla-re and animal life, and the other destruc¬ 
tive to both, and producing by their different combinations, the most 
diversified and beneficial effects. He perceives the atmosphere, as 
the agent under the Almighty, which produces the germination and 
growth of plants, and all the beauties of the vegetable creation_ 
which preserves water in a liquid state—supports fire and flame, 
and produces animal heat, which sustains the clouds, and gives 
buoyancy to the feathered tribes—which is the cause of winds_the 
vehicle of smells—the medium of sounds—the source of all the plea¬ 
sures we derive from the harmonies of music—the cause of that 
universal light and splendor which is diffused around us, and of the 
advantages we derive from the morning and evening twilight. In 
short, he contemplates it as the prime mover in a variety of ma¬ 
chines—as impelling ships across the ocean, blowing our furnaces, 
grinding our corn, raising water from the deepest pits, extinguishing 
tires, setting power-looms in motion, propelling steam-boats along 
rivers and canals, raising balloons to the region of the clouds, and 
performing a thousand other beneficent agencies without which our 
globe would cease to be a habitual world. All which views and 
contemplations have an evident tendency to enlarge the capacity of 
the mind, to stimulate its faculties, and to produce rational enjoy¬ 
ment. 
