Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/267

 plant annually six mulberry trees during a period of seven years. it was afterwards declared that a large number of the mulberry trees bore so many leaves that each tree would nourish a sufficient number of worms to produce silk to the value of five pounds. The vine-dressers soon began to plant mulberry slips, their example being imitated to some extent by the colonists.

With a view to promoting an interest in silk culture, the Company were at pains to have the most approved works on the silk-worm translated into English and forwarded to the Colony for general distribution. Mr. Bonoel, the superintendent of the Royal Silk Establishment, composed a special treatise at their suggestion, in which he pointed out the proper manner of constructing rooms for silk-worms, as well as of planting mulberry trees. The treatise was published and many copies sent to Virginia, to which a large quantity of silk-worms were also dispatched from the royal collection in England. In 1620, a store of silk-worms were procured from Italy and Spain, and steps were also taken to obtain a supply from France. The Company secured an expert who had been an apprentice of one of the men employed in the Royal Silk Establishment, where he had been carefully trained by his master. The latter was allowed twenty pounds sterling in consideration of the release of this apprentice