soon it may be "esteemed disreputable, by both ladies and gentlemen, to wear any thick silk but of our own manufacture."
In 1819 five tons of raw silk were raised at Mansfield, Connecticut, and the manufacture of silk is still carried on there. In the year 1835 we read of a company formed in Rhode Island having a large plantation of about thirty thousand mulberry-trees, and the State Legislature of that year offers a premium of fifty cents on every pound of silk raised and reeled in that State within two years from the passage of the act. "Rhode Island is likely," so the paper says, "to take the lead in the manufacture of silk as she did in cotton.
That the interest in the culture of silk must have been kept up, for a time at least, is shown by the fact that in 1840 the United States exported 61,552 pounds of raw silk, and in 1844 396,790 pounds, but in 1850 only 14,763 pounds were exported, while in 1870 the census gives no statistics of silk raised in this country.
About 1860 the culture of silk was started in California, where the conditions of climate seemed specially favorable for its success, and for some years it was carried on; but by 1878 it had greatly declined, owing possibly to commercial and industrial depression. Whether the industry continues to any extent we have not ascertained.
In the year 1882 the Department of Agriculture received many letters from persons interested in the culture of silk, and distributed a few silk-worm eggs, but there was no general distribution.
In 1884 the department appropriated fifteen thousand dollars for the encouragement of the industry, and a special agent was appointed to attend to the work, the department offering to send eggs to any one who would try the experiment of raising them. I should judge, however, that no very favorable reports were received, as, at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1885, as reported in "Science," Professor Riley stated that the culture of silk had been tried in the United States for fifty years, and all that the experiments had shown so far was that silk could be raised over three fourths of the United States if there was a market for the cocoons. He considers the industry best conducted on a small scale, and adapted for women and children who have no other way of earning money. The profit for three persons he estimates at fifteen to twenty-five dollars for the season, provided the cocoons bring one dollar a pound a price, by-the-way, which only the best cocoons bring.
The care of silk-worms is decidedly wearisome, interesting though it may be; and certainly any woman enterprising enough to start in the experiment of raising silk, and strong enough to do the necessary work, might find some more profitable way of utilizing her time.
Mr. Edward Atkinson, at the same meeting of the Association above mentioned, maintained that the culture of silk in the United States was not desirable, since there was no lack of employment, as the high rate of wages shows, and we can not afford to do for our-
