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Rh industries, either in the full tide of success or in encouraging progress, it is really singular that it has been left for poor colored people to inaugurate an enterprise that capital and experience have long tried in vain to establish in this country. The stor}' of the inception of silk culture in Alabama possesses elements of a highly romantic character, and the condition to which Mr. Samuel Lowery has brought the industry at Huntsville shows that the State may become the peer of France in this great business.

Mr. Lowery was born in Nashville, Tenn., December 9, 1832, his father being Elder -Peter Lowery, a slave, who purchased the freedom of himself, his mother, three brothers, two sisters and a nephew, and became the first colored pastor of a church in the South, preaching in the Second Christian Church at Nashville from 1849 to 1866. Ruth Mitchell—afterward the wife of the "Elder"—was a free woman, who devoted the results of her energy to the funds Peter had accumulated for the purchase of his freedom. The amount, $1,000, was paid over forty-five years ago. The couple v"ere married, and Samuel was the only child. At the age of twelve he was placed at Franklin College, Tenn., where, in spite of his color, he commanded the respect of the faculty and pupils. At the close of the war Samuel began reading law, and was the first colored man ever admitted to the Supreme Court of Tennessee and the courts of Northern Alabama. In due time he married, and in 1875 he was directed, by curiosity, to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Theobold, at Nashville, who had brought some silk-worm eggs from England. His daughters, Ruth and Anna, accompanied him. Upon hearing Mrs. Theobold describe the methods of raising the worm Ruth became so deeply interested that she begged her father to purchase some of the eggs and give her leave to try the experiment of hatching them. To this he consented, and shortly after the family removed to Huntsville, where he opened a school. His daughters introduced sewing, knitting and needle-work among the poor girls, and began preparations for hatching the eggs. Having no books to advise her, Ruth received all her knowledge of the subject from that stern but thorough teacher, experience.

During the first season the Corporation of Huntsville granted her a large white mulberry in the midst of the city, upon the leaves of which her first worms were fed. This tree is perennial in Southern Alabama, but drops its leaves in from four to six weeks in the latitude of Huntsville. It is not troubled with parasites, and the worms fed