The recent asses of Mr, Arthur H, Cole, a Harvard profess sor, in the "American Economic Journal," that "silkworms can be jerown even in bleak Connecticut, fand have been by the tens of thou sands," hag failed to elicit mu. enthusiasm from readers. Professor Cole described the "silk fever" of the 30's of the last century, when the: Chinese mulberry tree was intro Jduced to America and a farm paper, lemaly assured the farmer that single acre in mulberries will clothe: Jand educate his children; and that {ive will enable him to live sumps tously and lay by enough in ten years to leave his family indepen= ent. those days, Daniel Websbeit bought 5,000 trees for his farm at: Marshfield, Mass. and the logists tures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Jerseys, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio and [Indiana excitedly passed laws grante ting State bawties for mulberry raising and silk-reeling, The trees. outished, but the industry languishe ed. Trees which sold for a dollar each in 1837 could not be given away: in 1839, All of this recalls earlier fevers which have swept the: United States—all failures, Once, just before the War gf" Independence, and again in Washing tons frst administration, the passion for silk-raising swept New England, President Stiles, of Yale, according an investigator, and "his wife, raised 3,000 silkworms in New Haven, in 1771, and sent their sible Product to London, where a friend. joked it out with silk bought of Benjamin Franklin,. who. waergtow= ing worms in Philadelphia, enough to make a 108 yd. dress for his wite. In 1790, 50 families in New Haven raised silkworms and the fever had spread throughout Connecticut; and fin 1791 a Mr. Aspinwall. porst the New York Assembly to pro} 4 premium of $3 for every mulberry trees reaching the age of three years in good health. He then thriftily proceeded to set out. 800,000 trees on Long Island!
Earlier than this, colonial Virginia passed & lay, as neglected ay proc hibition to-day, compelling every farmer to plant six mulberry trees for seven yea James I attempted_ to establish the silkworm in Virginia in 1609 and Cortes introduced sill worms into Mexico nearly a century. before the Pilgrims landed It is all in vain," an editorial writer in the "Herald-Tribune" points out, "The silkworm is only curiosity in the Americas to-day. [The silk merchants of America have jeeased to plaot mulberry nurseries jabour their New England mills and wisely spend their surplus on sible institutes like that of Lingnan University at Canton, China, where the silk industry is 4,000 or 5,000 years old an labour is almost cheap to-day as when the first wi silkworms were brought down from the hills."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.