Women in Silk Culture.

The feminine portion of our population is getting to be mighty independent. Instead of waiting, Micawber-like, for something (a man) to turn up they are going to work to turn it up themselves. They would rather make a living for themselves than have a man to make it for them. They are teaching schools, operating telegraph instruments and telephones, clerking, keeping books of account, type-writing, doing short-hand reporting, lecturing, preaching, practicing law, and some have so far fallen from grace as to be editing papers. But many of these occupations present closed doors to our country girls and women. Many of these can not leave their country homes, and these occupations, with the exception of school teaching, can not be carried on in the country. Others, who could leave home, are chary of braving the wiles and temptations of the city, and their friends are still more loth to have them go. The great need is some work, light, respectable, and yet fairly remunerative, which our country lassies can carry on at home. School teaching is possible, but teaching country district schools is the most thankless of all drudgery, and, besides, a majority of our young women are not able to endure the worry and close confinement. If it can be made successful, sericulture offers by far the best opportunity to country girls to earn their own pin money, or even their own living. It can be engaged in at home; it is light, pleasant, and interesting work; and there is no doubt that American silk can be produced of such a quality that there will be a brisk demand for it at good prices. But if all this be true the question at once presents itself, Why have not American women engaged largely in sericulture?

The answer is that they have been appalled at the very outset by the alleged expense of the undertaking. The promoters of the enterprise took to writing books. There was an excuse for this amounting almost to a necessity. To engage in silk culture, a person must be possessed of some special knowledge. It is no harder than poultry or bee-keeping, but a person to succeed at these must have some expert knowledge, and as sericulture was a new thing, beginners must have books containing what they needed. But these authors made the business much more difficult and expensive than it should be. First of all, they laid it down as one of the Medes and Persian laws of sericulture, that the worms must have mulberry leaves to subsist upon. Mulberry sprouts are costly to begin with; then the trees must grow at least two years, and should grow five years, before the leaves are used. This, of itself, was enough to deter but a very few from silk culture. But they made it appear, also, that very expensive appliances for a cocoonery were necessary, and only the most costly breeds of worms should be used, entailing greater expense and difficulty. The books were, and for that matter are, filled with dry scientific details of the internal construction of the worm and of its habits—details which only confused the learner and which, though giving an author material from which to deduce rules of instruction, should have been omitted from the book and their place supplied with the rules deduced. In short, it seemed to be the prime object to make sericulture as hard and forbidding as possible, and to deter the people from it rather than to induce them to engage in the work. For this very reason there has been considerable popular indifference to it, and from the agricultural press it has not received that attention which so promising an industry deserves. I would not be so unjust as to leave the reader to infer that all authors on sericulture have been thus guilty. There have been some very few who from the very start have presented it in as easy and practicable a light as was consistent with successful work. Nor would I be ready to assert that those who have said it could not be made financially profitable without mulberry groves, fancy priced worms, and expensive appliances, have done so from base motives. Yet it would appear as if not a few could be justly indicted of this; for they have mulberry sprouts, fancy priced worms, and costly appliances to sell. And perhaps it occurred to them that if they deterred the people generally from taking hold of it, they would have less opposition and competition.

But be this as it may, the fact is that it is not necessary to have mulberry groves, costly appliances, or even fancy priced worms (though good worms only should be reared), in order to profitably engage in sericulture. I know of no business presenting so promising an opening that requires less capital. And I say this, having no axe to grind in any way, simply for the sake of those girls and women who might make money by it, and who would do so if they only knew the facts. I have no book, no sprouts, no worms, nothing whatever, to sell.

I have said that the leaves of the mulberry are not essential to silk growing. If this be true the greatest obstacle in the way of sericulture becoming a great national industry will have been removed. And that it is true is proven by the experience of not a few practical silk-growers. Without exception those who have tested the matter say that the leaves of the Osage-orange are equal to those of the mulberry, and some say they are better. My position brings me into correspondence with the leading specialists in agricultural pursuits, and among others with many practical silk-growers. To-day I received letters from three silk-growers, one in Illinois, one in Kansas, and one in California. Each had fed the leaves of the Osage-orange exclusively for the last two years, and with the best results. One said there was no doubt that they were at least equal to the leaves of the mulberry, and the other two pronounced them superior. One of our best authorities on sericulture, Prof. Barricelli, has shown by means of chemical analyses and other scientific data, that as nourishment for silk-worms the Osage is superior to the mulberry. In fact, nine-tenths of the practical silk-growers of the West, those who are making it not only practicable but profitable, are now feeding Osage leaves exclusively. This should be known by the people at large. There can be no monopoly of the Osage-orange. No one can demand of the expectant silk culturist exorbitant prices for Osage sprouts. In very few localities will it be necessary to plant the Osage even. We have an abundance of Osage hedges, particularly in the West. In such localities the silk culturist will be at no expense whatever for food for the worms, and will not be under even the necessity of waiting a couple of years for it to grow. When this is more fully understood by the girls and women of the country, we may expect silk culture to assume the importance of a profitable national industry.

John M. Stahl.

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PUBLICATIONS

The Youth's Companion

FOR 1884.

THE COMPANION presents below the Announcement of its Fifty-Seventh Volume. Its unusual character, both in the range of its topics, and its remarkably brilliant list of Contributors, will, we trust, be accepted as a grateful recognition of the favor with which the paper has been received by more than 300,000 subscribers.

Illustrated Serial Stories.

A Story of English Rustic Life, byThomas Hardy.

The Foundling of Paris, byAlphonse Daudet.

A Boys' Story, byJ.T. Trowbridge.

The Covenanter's Daughter, byMrs. Oliphant.

A Story of Adventure, byC.A. Stephens.

My School at Orange Grove, byMarie B. Williams.

Science and Natural History.

Eccentricities of Insanity, byDr. W.A. Butler.

Common Adulterations of Food, byDr. J.C. Draper.

The Home Life of Oysters, and other Natural History Papers, byArabella B. Buckley.

Wonders in Ourselves; or the Curiosities of the Human Body, byDr. Austin Flint, Jr.

Insect Enemiesof the Garden, the Orchard and the Wheat-Field, byA.S. Packard, Jr.

Demons of the Air and Water.A fascinating Series of Papers on Sanitary Science, byR. Ogden Doremus.

The Youth Of the Brain, "Speech in Man," "Animal Poisons and their Effects," and Other Papers, byDr. W.A. Hammond.

Strange Ways Of Curing People. A Description of Curious Sanitaria,—the Peat, Mud, Sand, Whey, and Grape Cures, byWilliam H. Rideing.

Encouragement and Advice.

Hints for Poor Farmers, byC.E. Winder.

The Failures of Great Men, byJames Parton.

A Dietary for Nervous People, byDr. W.A. Hammond.

Hints for Country House-Builders, byCalvert Vaux.

The Gift Of Memory, and Other Papers, giving Instances of Self-Help, bySamuel Smiles.

A New Profession for Young Men.The Opportunities for Young Men as Electrical Engineers, byThomas A. Edison.

At the Age Of Twenty-One.A Series of Papers showing what Great Men had accomplished, and what they proposed doing, at that period of their lives, byEdwin P. Whipple.

Original Poems.

Illustrated Adventure and Travel.

Shark-Hunting, byT.B. Luce.

Four Amusing Stories, byC.A. Stephens.

Outwitted. An Indian Adventure, byLieut. A. Chapin.

A Honeymoon in the Jungle, byPhil. Robinson.

Wrecked Upon a Volcanic Island, byRichard Heath.

Stories of the Cabins in the West, byE.J. Marston.

Adventures in the Mining Districts, byH. Fillmore.

The Capture of Some Infernal Machines, byWilliam Howson.

Breaking in the Reindeer, and Other Sketches of Polar Adventure, by W.H. Gilder.

An American in Persia, by the American Minister Resident, Teheran, S.G.W. Benjamin.

China as Seen by a Chinaman, by the Editor of the Chinese American, Wong Chin Foo.

Stories Of Menageries. Incidents connected with Menagerie Life, and the Capture and Taming of Wild Beasts for Exhibition, by S.S. Cairns.

Boys Afoot in Italy and Switzerland.The Adventures of two English boys travelling abroad at an expense of one dollar a day, by Nugent Robinson.

Reminiscences and Anecdotes.

Stage-Driver Stories, byRose Terry Cooke.

Stories of Saddle-Bag Preachers, byH.L. Winckley.

My First Visit to a Newspaper Office, byMurat Halstead.

Queen Victoria's Household and Drawing-Rooms, byH.W. Lucy.

Child Friendships of Charles Dickens, by his Daughter,Mamie Dickens.

Our Herbariums; Adventures in Collecting Them, byA Young Lady.

My Pine-Apple Farm, with incidents of Florida Life, byC.H. Pattee.

Bigwigs of the English Bench and Bar, by a London Barrister,W.L. Woodroffe.

At School with Sir Garnet Wolseley, and the Life of a Page of Honor in the Vice-Regal Court of Dublin, byNugent Robinson.

Student Waiters. Some Humorous Incidents of a Summer Vacation in the White Mountains, byChild McPherson.

The Editorials of the Companion, without having any bias, will give clear views of current events at home and abroad. The Children's Page will sustain its reputation for charming pictures, poems, and stories for the little ones.

Issued Weekly. Subscription Price, $1.75. Specimen Copies Free.

SPECIAL OFFER.—To any one who subscribes now, and sends us $1.75, we will send the Companion free to January 1st, 1884, and a full year's subscription from that date.

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