The silk culture in the United States; embracing complete accounts of the latest and most approved modes of hatching, rearing and feeding the silk-worm, managing a cocoonery, reeling, spinning, and manufacturing the silk, &c. ... With brief historical sketches of the silk business, natural history of the silk-worm, the mulberry, &c. comp. from the most approved and reliable works ... To which is added Blydenburgh's Manual of the silk culture; statistics of silk imports, &c., &c.

Front matter

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Chapter I

The Silkworm — Gene7-al Remarks on the Production of Silk — General view of the Nursery.

The silk worm, called by entomologists Pha- Icena bombyx mori, is, like its kindred species, subject to four metamorphoses.* f The egg, fostered by the genial warmth of sprihg, sends forth a caterpillar, which, in its progressive enlargement, casts its skin either three or four times, according to the variety of the insect. Having acquired its full size in the course of twenty-five or thirty days, and ceasing to eat during the remainder of its life, it begins to discharge a viscid secretion, in the form of pulpy twin filaments, from its nose, which harden in the air. These threads are instinctively coiled into an ovid nest round itself, called a cocoon, which serves as a defence against living enemies and changes of temperature. Here it soon changes into the chrysaUs or nymph state, in which it lies swaddled, as it were, for about fifteen or twenty days.. Then it bursts its cerements, and comes forth furnished with appropriate wings, antenntp, and feet, for living in its new element, the atmosphere. The male and the female moths couple together at this time, and terminate their union by a speedy death, their whole existence being limited to two months. The cocoons are completely formed in the eourse of three or four days ; the finest being reserved as seed worms. From these cocoons, after an interval of eighteen or twenty days, the moth makes its appearance, perforating its tomb by knocking with its head against one end of the cocoon, after softening it with saliva, and thus

* Ure's Dictionaiy of Arts, &c.

rendering the filaments more easily torn asunder by its claws. Such moths or aurelias are collected and placed upon a piece of soft cloth, where they couple and lay their eggs.

The eggs, or grains, as they arc usually termed, are enveloped in a liquid which causes them to adhere to the piece of cloth or paper on which the female lays them. From this glue they are readily freed, by dipping them in cold water, and wiping them dry. They are best preserved in the ovum state at a temperature of about 55° F. If the heat of spring advances rapidly in April, it must not be suffered to act on the eggs, otherwise it might hatch the caterpillars long before the mulberry has sent forth its leaves to nourish them. Another reason for keeping back their incubation is, that they may be hatched together in large broods, and not by small numbers in succession. The eggs are made up into small packets^f an ounce, or somewhat more, which in the souui of France are generally attached to the girdles of the women during the day, and placed under their pillows at night. /They are, of course^ carefully examined from time to time. In larg« establishments, they are placed in an appropriate stove-room where they arc exposed to a temperatare gradually increased till it reaches the 86th degree of Fahrenheit's scale, which term it must not exceed. Aided by this heat, nature completes her mysterious work of incubation in eight or ten days. The teeming eggs eire now covered with a sheet of paper pierced with numerous holes, about one twelfth of an inch in diameter. Through these apertures tlie new hatched worms creep upweird instinctively, to get at the tender mulberry leaves strewed over the paper. )

History and Culture of Silk.

Besides the Bombyx mori, there are seven species of silkworm, formerly unknown, enumerated by Dr. Heifer as existing in India :* 1. The wild silkworm of the central provinces, a moth not larger than the Bombyx mori. 2. The Jorcc silkwonn of Assam, Bombyx religiosa;, which spins a cocoon of a fine filament, with much lustre. It lives upon the pipul tree {Ficiis religi. osa), which abounds in India, and ought therefore to be turned to account in breeding this valuable moth. 3. Saturnia silihetica, which inhabits the cassia mountains in Silhet and Dacca, where its large cocoons are spun into silk. 4. A still larger Saturnia, one of the greatest moths in existence, measuring ten inches from the one end of the wing to the other ; observed by Mr. Grant, in Chira punjee. 5. Saturnia paphia, or the Tusseh silkworm, is the most common of the native species, and furnishes the cloth usually worn by Europeans in India. It has not hitherto been domesticated, but millions of its cocoons are annually collected in the jungles, and brought to the silk factories near Calcutta and Bhagelpur. It feeds most commonly on the hair tree {Zizypkusjujuba), but it prefers the Terminalia alata, or Assam tree, and the Bombax heptaphillum It is called Kouthuri mooga, in Assam. 6. Another Saturnia, from the neighborhood of Comcrcolly. 7. Saturnia assamensis, with a cocoon of a yellow-brown color, different from all others, called mooga, in Assam ; which, although it can be reared in houses, thrives best in the open air upon trees, of which seven different kinds afford it food. The Mazankoory mooga, which feeds on the Adakoory tree, produces a fine silk, which is nearly white, and fetches fifty per cent, more than the fawn colored. There are generally five breeds of mooga worms in the year ; 1. in January and February ; 2. in May and June ; 3. in June and July; 4. in August and September; 5. in October and November ; the first and last being the most valuable.

The management of the worms, and more particular directions for the Nursery will be given in a subsequent part of the work, but in order to render what follows intelligible to the general reader, we here give a very general view of the operations of the Nursery, as conducted in France at the present time.

The nursery where the wonns are reared is called by the French a jnagnaniire ;t it ought to be a well-aired chamber, free from damp, excess of cold or heat, rats, and other vermin. It should be ventilated occasionally, to purify the atmosphere from the noisome emanations produced by the excrements of the caterpillars and the decayed leaves. The scaffolding of the wicker work shelves should be substantial; and they should be from fifteen to eighteen inches apart. A separate small apartment should be allotted to the sickly worms. Immediately before each moulting, the appetite of the worms begins to flag ; it ceases altogether at that period of cutaneous metamorphosis, but revives speedily after the skin is fairly cast, because the internal parts of the animal are thereby allowed freely to develope themselves. At the end of the second age, the worms are half an inch long ; and then

* Ure's Dietioatry. f Ibid, should be transferred from the small room in which they were first hatched, into the proper apartment where they are to be brought to maturity and set to spin their balls. On occasion of changing their abode, they must be well cleansed from the littter, laid upon beds of fresh leaves, and supplied with an abundance of food every six hours in succession. In shifting their bed, a piece of network being laid over the wicker plates, and covered with leaves, the worms will creep up over them ; when they may be transferred in a body upon the net. The litter, as well as the sickly worms, may thus be readily removed, without handling a single healthy one. After the third age, they may be fed with entire leaves ; because they are nov/ exceedingly voracious, and must not be subsequently stinted in tlieir diet. The exposure of chloride of lime, spread thin upon plates, to the air of the magnanicre, has been found useful in counteracting the tendencj' which sometimes appears of an epidemic disease among the silkworms, from the fetid exhalations of the dead and dying.

When they have ceased to eat, either in the fcrtirth or fifth age, agreeably to the variety of the boinbyx, and when they display the spinning instinct by crawling up among the twigs of heath, &c., they are not long of beginning to construct their cocoons, by throwing the thread in different directions, so as to form the floss, filoselle, or outer open network, which constitutes the bourre or silk for carding and spinning.

The cocoons destined for filature, must not be allowed to remain for many days with the worms alive within them ; for should the chrysalis have leisure to grow mature or come out, the filaments at one end would be cut through, and thus lose almost all their value. It is therefore necessary to extinguish the life of the animal by heat, which is done either by exposing the cocoons for a few days to sunshine, by placing them in a hot oven, or in the steam of boiling water. A heat of 202" F. is sufficient for effecting this purpose, and it may be best administered by plunging tin cases filled with the cocoons into water heated to that pitch.

Eighty pounds French (eighty-eight English) of cacoons, arc the average produce from one ounceof eggs, or one hundred from one ounce and a quarter. The silk obtained from a cocoon is from seven hundred fifty to one thousand one hundred fifty feet long. The varnish by which the coils are glued slightly together, is soluble in warm water.

The silk husbandry, as it may be called, is completed in France within six weeks from the end of April, and thus affords the most rapid of agricultural returns, requu'ing merely (he advance of a little capital for the purchase of the leaf.

The most hazardous period in the process of breeding the worms, is at the third and fourth moulting; for upon the sixth day of the third age, and the seventh day of the fourth, they in general ^at nothing at all. On the first day of the fourth age, the worms proceeding from one ounce of eggs will, according to Bonafons, consume upon an average twenty-three pounds and a quarter of mulberry leaves ; on tlie first of the fifth age, they will consume forty-two pounds; and on the sixth day of the same age, they ac-

History and Culture of Silk.

quire their maximum voracity, devouring no less than two hundred twenty-three pounds. From this date their appetite continually decreases, till on the tenth day of this age they consume only fifty-six pounds. The space which tliey occupy upon the wicker tables, being at their birth only nine feet square, becomes eventually two hundred thirty-nine feet. In general, the more food they consume, the more silk will they produce.

Chapter II

Early liislory of Silk — Introduction into Europe — Into 'the- United States.

The earliest mention that is made of silk,* is in the translation of the Bible, by Jerome, who speaks of it as one among the articles which the Phoenicians imported from Syria. The exceeding beauty of the fabric rendered it particularly attractive to mankind, wherever it was known. It was brought, for a long time, by traders from China, in caravans, through the sands and deserts of Asia to the ports of Syria and Egypt. -, The distance which it was brought, and the coksequent difficulty of procuring it in large quantities, made it very expensive. Dionysius Periegetes, the geographer, who was sent by Augustus to compile an account of the Oriental regions, gave to his countrymen the astonisjiing information that precious garments were made by the Seres, the inhabitants of what is now Bucharia, from threads finer than those of the spider. And among all the gorgeous displays made by the renowned and luxurious Cleopatra, none excited so strongly the admiration, the unmixed astonishment of the people, as the silk sails of her pleasure bark.

For centuries, the silk trade was monopolized by the Persians. When they were subdued by Alexander, the commodity was brought to Greece, and thence to Rome. The anxiety of the Romans to trade directly with the producers of this cos^y material, induced the emperor, Marcus Antt^imus, to send embassadors to their country te negotiate a direct commercial intercourse wil^ them.

Soon after Justinian ascended the throne, he sent Julian as his ambassador to the Christian King of Axuma, in Aby.«taia, appealing to him that, for the sake of ♦<'icir common religion, he would assist him i"-- war with Persia, and direct his subjects to *uy silks in India and .sell them to the Rom.-»iis, by which means the Axumites would acefuire great wealth, and the Romans would have the satisfaction of paying their money to their friends, instead of to their Persian enemies.

But the culture of silk was finally introduced into Europe, in a singular manner. The preachers of the Nestorian religion, having been persecuted by the Ecclesiastical Government at home, fled from Byzantium into India. Their Patriarch, who resided in Persia, sent missionaries abroad, and established convents in various parts of India. Two of his monks, who had been employed as missionaries, penetrated into the country where silk was produced and manufactured, and became acquainted with its culture, and the art of manufacturing it into elegant fabrics. Knowing the

^ R«portof Mr. Bliss to the Legislature of Ohio.

anxiety of the Europeans to possess this knowledge, they imparted the secret to the Emperor Justinian, that silk was produced by a species of worm, whose eggs could easily be transported. By the promise of a great reward, they were induced to return, and they carried safely to Constantinople a quantity of silk worms' ecrgs, in the hollow of a. cane ; and the worms from these few eggs, thus brought from India, may properly bo considered the progenitors of all that have since been reared in Europe or Western Asia. From this the culture gradually spread over different parts of Europe ; but the use of it was still confined to the courts of Emperors and Kings, and to the wealthier classes of the people. And it was not until in the sixteenth century that the culture and manufacture became so extensive as to warrant any thing like a common use of it ; and even then, it was, comparativel}', used but by few.

About 11.30, Roger II., king of Sicily, set up a silk manufacture at Palermo,* and another in Calabria, conducted by artisans whom he had seized and carried off as prisoners of war in his expedition to the Holy Land. From these countries, the silk industry soon spread throughout Italy. It seems to have been introduced into Spain at a very early period, by the Moors, par. ticularlyin Murcia, Cordova, and Granada. The last town, indeed, possessed a flourishing silk trade when it was taken by Ferdinand in the 15th century. The French having been supplied with workmen from Milan, commenced in 1521 the silk manufacture; but it 'v^as not till 1564 that they began successfuUj to produce the silk itself, when Traucat, a working gardner at Nismes, formed the firsj* nursery of white mulberry trees, and with su'^h success, that in a few years he was enabW to propagate them over many of the southern provinces of France. Prior to this time, sp^ne French noblemen, on their return from the <;onquest of Naples, had introduced a few fiiikworms with tiie mulberry into Dauphiny ; but the business iiad not prospered in their hands. The mulberry plantations were greatly encouraged by Henry IV.; and since then they have been the source of most beneficial employment to the French people.

James I. was most solicitous to introduce the breeding of silkworms into England, and in a speech from the throne he earnestly recommended his subjects to plant mulberry trees ; but he totally failed in the project. This country does not seem to be well adapted for this species of husbandry, on account of the great prevalence of blighting east winds duiing the months of April and May, when the worms require a plentiful supply of mulberry leaves. The manufacture of silk goods, however, made great progress during that king's peaceful and pompous reign. In 1629 it had become so considerable in London, that the silk-throwstcrs of the city and suburbs were formed into a public corporation. So early as 1661, they employed 40,000 persons. The revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a remarkable manner to the increase of the English silk trade, by the influx of a large colony of skilful French weavers, who settled in Spitalfields. The great silk-throwing mill mounted at Derby, in 1719, also served to promote the exten.

^ Urt's Dictionary of Arts, &c. I

History and Culture of Silk.

sion of this branch of manufacture ; for soon afterward, in the year 1730, the EngUshsilk goods bore a higher price in Italy than those made by the Italians, according to the testimony of Keysler.

PRODUCTION OF SILK IN THE UNITED STATES.

Theproductionof silk in the United States* has been repeatedly brought before the public ; and presented in various forms as a subject of general interest to the agricultural community. When the State of Georgia was settled, silk and wine were recommended as particular objects of culture. In Virginia measures were taken as early as 1663 to encourage the general production of silk ; and the failure to plant mulberry trees at the rate of ten for every hundred acres, was made by the laws a penal offence. In 1760, the society in London for the encouragement of arts, manufactures, and commerce, offered liberal premiums for the production of silk in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. " The society propose to give for every pound weight of cocoons produced in the Province of Connecticut in the year 1759, of an hard, weighty, and good substance, wherein one worm only has spun three pence; for every pound weight of cocoons of a weaker, lighter, spotted, or bruised quality, though only one worm has spun in them two pence ; for every pound of cocoons, produced in the same year, wherein two worms are interwoven, one penny. These premiums will be paid on condition that a public filature be established in Connecticut, and that eac\» person bring his or her balls to such public filaiore." This invitation, says Jared Eliot, in his remarkable essays on Field Husbandry in New England, is not to a business to which we are wholly stiangers ; it is not to an empty, airy, and untried pioject ; for there has been something of this manufactory carried on for sundry years, and by a number of our people in divers of our towns by which we are assured that it is practicable. As early as ■ 1747, the governor of Connecticut, Mr. Law, } wore the first coat and stockings made of New- I England silk ; and in 1750, his daughter wore the first silk gown of domestic production.

In an almanac of Nathaniel Ames, for the year 1769, it seems the subject had been matter of much public discussion, and " a gentleman, whom posterity will bless, deposited one hundred dollars in the hands of the selectmen of Boston ; forty dollars to be given to the person, who in the year 1771, shall have raised the greatest quantity of mulberry trees ; thirty dollars to him that shall have the next greatest number ; twenty to the next ; and ten to the next ; certificate being produced from a justice of the peace of the number, and that they belong to Massackusetts Bay." It is added that, " Justinian, the emperor, looking upon it as a great hardship that his subjects should buy the manufacture of the Persians at so dear a rate as a pound of gold for a pound of silk, dispatched two monks into India to discover and learn how the silk trade was managed there ; and to bring a quantity of those insects from whom he was informed the silk was produced, when they brought at a second voyage, great quantity of silk

worms' eggs." This writer adds, •' It is but of late years that the Europeans fell into the way of cultivating any quantity of raw silk. The Italj ians led the way ; and they have been followed with great success by the French ; and the advantages thereof to these nations are amazing, as they supply Great Britain with raw silk for the thousands of spinners and weavers constantly employed in Spitalfields. It being certain that raw silk is plentifully raised in much more northern climates than this, we have a most promising prospect of one day turning the constant course of prodigious sums of money from Spain, France, and Italy into America."

It is further stated by Eliot, in 1762, " that by a late account from Georgia, it appears that the silk manufactory is in a flourishing way. In the year 1757, the weight of silk balls received at the filature, was only 1,050 ; last yearproduced 7,040, and this year about 10,000 ; and it is very remarkable that the raw silk exported from Georgia, sells at London from two to three shillings a pound more than that from any other part of the world." It is stated by President Stiles, that in 1762 Georgia exported to London 15,000 lbs. cocoons, deemed sufficient to make 1500 lbs. of silk.

Other remarks of Eliot, considering the time when he wrote, are particularly deserving of attention. He commends especially the cultivation of silk to the northern colonies, " who are destitute of any staple commodity by which they could make an immediate and direct return to England, for such goods as we want, and must always want, more abundantly than we have means at present by which we can refund. This seems to be the state of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut." The cultivation of the great staple of cotton was not pursued then to any extent in the Southern States.

He goes on to say that, " those among us, who raise silk, say, that it is more profitable than other ordinary business. Some years past, I asked a ">an of good faith and credit, who had then made the raost silk of any among us, what profit might be madt, of it. His reply was that he could make a yard of s\\\ as cheap as he could make a yard of linen cloth of eight run to the pound. A woman of experience in this business told me, that, in the short time of feeding the worm and winding the silk balls, she coald earn enough to hire a good spinner the whole yt^r. I have not the least scruple of the informer's,veracity, but how far their capacity might serve for lan exact calculation, I know not."

" We labor under such difficulties to make returns for goods imported, that many have Uiought it would be best that we should make our own cloths and by this means lessen our importation, which indeed would be better than to run into an endless and irrecoverable debt ; but there is now a way opened by which, if we are not wanting to ourselves, we may not only continue but increase our importation, for if the same cost, labor, and time which we expend in making one yard of cloth, if laid out in raising silk will procure two yards of the same sort of cloth, and manufactured by more skilful hands, it is easy to see which is the most eligible method."

In 1 772, as appears from the manuscript journal of President Stiles of Yale College, his family

History and Culture of Silk.

engaged, to some extent, in the culture of silk, and their production was sent to England to be manufactured, a sample of which cloth, presenting a singularly beautiful fabric, together with the journal itself, is now in my possession.*

About the year 1770, a "filature was established in Philadelphia, and it is a remarkable fact tiiat from the 25th of June to the 15th of August 1771, two thousand three hundred pounds of cocoons were brought to the filature to be reeled, or were bought by the managers. These came from Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and Delaware. t

About the year 1760, the culture of silk was introduced into Mansfield, Conn., and some of the neighboring towns. It has been pursued ever since that time, to a small extent, in several other places in 'New-England ; but it cannot be said to have maintained its foothold in any other situation than in Mansfield. In other places, where it planted itself with every favorable prospect of success, it presently expired. In Mansfield, Conn., it has continued to be pursued to the present time. The largest amount of raw reeled silk reported to have been produced in any one year in Mansfield, as was stated to me in that town, has been about seven thousand pounds. In general, however, it has not exceeded . three thousand pounds per year. The inhabitants of Mansfield have been wholly dependent upon the white mulberry for feed for their worms ; and a large proportion of these were destroyed in the severe winter of 1834-5.

In all these experiments, made in the Northern, Southern and Middle States, it was found, that our climate and soils every where produced silk of a superior quality, and that commanded a high price. The same is true at the present day, for the same sun shines, and the same winds blow.

But in those early times, there were causes that forbid a wide extension, or the permanent establishment of the business. The population of the country was sparce. In some parts indigo, rice and tobacco were supposed to be more profitable. The revolutionary war broke up the filatures North and South, and then came on the cotton culture, which, at the South, has swallowed up every thing else to the present day.

All this while, be it remembered, it was the white mulberry on which they fed, which involved expenditures in labor at least two or three times as large as feeding from the best foreign varieties of the mulberry lately introduced.

But the main difficulty was the want of a regular home market for cocoons and raw silk. Cocoons will not bear shipment, nor will they bear distant land transportation. They require a home market. We had no silk manufacturing establishment^ to present such markets. Up to 1816, the entire feeling of the country, a feeling industriously instilled from the very infancy of our settlements, by the mother kingdom, was in opposition to domestic manufactures of every description. The clock reel, the spinning wheel, and hand loom, constituted all the machinery that was thought befitting our circumstances, as an agricultural and a commercial people.

In this state of things, silk factories of course

* I. R. Barbour of Oxford, Mass. t^Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, p. 64.

would not start up. Hence the «ilk grown, was generally worked up in families into sewings and hosier}', and bartered at the village stores for goods. Nobody thought of getting cash for it.

The silk culture became strongly the subject of public attention in 1826.* Congress encouraged it, by the publication and distribution of large editions of :nanuals and treatises, prepared with great care and fullness, and giving all the directions and details necessary to the prosecution of the business, from the raising of the trees, to the preparation of the article for use. The vast amounts of money annually sent abroad for the purchase ef this article of universal use and almost of necessity, the increasing use of the article among all classes of people, and to an extent probably not known in any other country ; and, at the same time, the acknowledged capacity of the country to produce silk, and of the best quality, gave new prommence to the subject in the community, and drew the public attention to it with an intense interest ; but with no greater interest than in an economical view, in the opinion of many intelligent men, its national importance may justly claim.

The first attempt to manufacture sewing silk by machinery, was made in Mansfield, Conn., in. 1829, by Capt. Joseph Conant, and Mr. Atwood. They succeeded in making a good article, though for a time, amidst many losses and discouragements. But Yankee skill and pereverance triumphed. They pushed the business through, and are still engaged in it vigorously and successfully — the former in the firm of Conant & Swift, Northampton, Mass., and the latter in the firm of Atwood & Crane, Mansfield, Conn.

Since 1829, a few other factories have been established for the manufacture of sewings, twist, galoons, fringes, coach lace, handkerchiefs, velvets and piece goods, and are now in successful operation. They are found in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-Hampshire, New- York, New- / Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, and else- / where. Others arc in contemplation, and will spring up in different localities as fast as circumstances will permit. In this way local cash markets are created for cocoons and raw silk, to any extent that may be desired, thus alleviating the great difiieulty formerly experienced ; and securing, it is fully hoped, the regular extension of the silk culture throughout all the States, and the complete establishment of the silk business, growing and manufacturing, as a part of the permanent industry of the country.

In 1831, the introduction of a new plant into the country, (the Perottet Mulberry, or Morus Multicaulis,) which promised from its extraordinary capacity of rapid multiplication, and its productiveness of foliage, to furnish superior advantages for the prosecution of the silk culture, gave a new impulse to the cause, and roused public enthusiasm to a high degree of fervor.

In the year 1836, the subject of Silk Culture in the United States was brought before the public by a communication from General Tallmadge, then on a tour through Europe, which appeared in the Journal of the American Institute. We here insert such parts of the communication referred to as relate to the Silk business, inasmuch