SILKWORM FARMING IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5290, 9 March 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

SILKWORM FARMING IN ENGLAND.

Mr. George Mason, writing to The Tines, says In a letter which you published on December 28, from a “Lyons Merchant,” he accounts for the present high price of “good and durable silks ” by reminding the public “that twenty or thirty years ago silk in the raw material was nearly half its price to-day, and the workmanship is more than double what it was.” Now, although wo can only hope in some measure to balance the rise in the market value of labor by an increase of produce from improved machinery, yet, with the advantage of a temperate climate, we may be able to assist the growers of silk in warm latitudes to recover their loss in produce of the raw material in these latter years from the prevalent disease in the worm. My own experiment in the produce of grain the last season partially failed from want of careful attendance, though the quality is excellent; but in Hertfordshire Mrs. Leeson has succeeded in saving 80ozs. of eggs from a fine race of Australian silk-

worm acclimatised in 1876. The worms are fed from 100 trees ot tho Moms alba lent by Lord Lytton, so that as these, planted at 12ft. "apart, would occupy a quarter of an aero of land, after deducting one-third for rest and manure, this produce, at tho market value of such stock in Italy, would give a largo net profit. All varieties of the Moms alba would grow rapidly wherever gorse and thistles give a sure index of a profitable soil on our waste lands ; and we have the advantage of root crops to pay for labor until the trees are fit for use. Tho Australian Silk Depot, 7, Charles-stroet, Groavenorsquaie, affords a practical proof of the capability of the soil and climate of these colonies for the growth of silk, and how every particle of tho mile of gummy fibre which the silkworm spins from the mouth in the course of three days, without a single breakage, offers employment to willing hands.”