Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/171



'I am gratified to find a renewed and more general interest excited at the present time. If this awaking up to a scientific and practical consideration of the subject is not soon crowned with signal success, I am satisfied it will not be for want of enterprize or skill in our countrymen, but merely from the high price of labor, compared with the scanty wages given in other silk-growing countries. Even this consideration (though it may retard for a while the complete success of this department of productive industry), will not prevent its ultimate triumph.'

"The above is the opinion of one of the most scientific men of the age, who, in early life, was himself a silk grower. His opinion accords with that of many others of high consideration in the United States.

"While viewing the flourishing condition of one of my mulberry patches, you asked with what it had been manured? and received for answer, ashes, and the deciduous foliage. The foliage, you thought, could be gathered for making paper, and answered, that there would be sufficient defective foliage left to manure the land; the foliage is richer than any stable manure, and stable manure should never be applied to the mulberry. I have not had occasion the last five or six years to use even ashes as a manure, but keep the land in good tilth by frequent hoeing. If you found these mulberries more flourishing than others you had seen, it may be attributed, in a great measure, to frequent hoeing, and dressing with the decayed mulberry foliage.

"The soil is a light sandy loam; and, previous to its being stocked with mulberry, would not yield the value of $10 in any crop; and now, my feeder says, if his worms do well, he hopes to get $800 for the crop! A part of this lot being stocked with alpine, broosa, and Asiatic mulberry, of 6 to 10 feet in height, in rows 3 feet apart; and having grown so vigorously as to shade each other, and liable to have spotted leaves. I have, in order to avoid this, and procure more, larger, and better foliage, cut away or headed down every other row, within three or four inches of the ground; and from the stumps have sprung up a multitude of thrifty sprouts, now fit for use, and the leaves three times larger than those on the standard trees, are so fresh and