SERICULTURE in CALIFORNIA.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 706, 3 September 1870, Page 2

SERICULTURE in CALIFORNIA.

THE DAVISVILLE SILKWORM STJKSERY. In the report on sericulture in the State of California, reference is made by Mr Baldwin to the above establish. merit, which is one of the principal in the State, aud is situate about twenty miles from Sacrameuto. The country is described as very like portions of New Zealand. The Davisville property consists of five hundred acres of fine undulating land of a rich friable soil, aud was purchased two years ago for thirty dollars an acre ; upwards of one hundred acres are planted with the three different varieties of the mulberry tree, and its estimated value is now 140 dollars the acre. At the time of his visit there were 700,000 young mulberry trees on the grounds. Chinese are employed in the establishment as being cheaper, and generally understanding something about the managemeut of worms. Mr Baldwin gives the following details of the operation :

To commence with the hatching, room : —The worms are here hatched, and, at the end of the day, every day's hatching removed on to paper trays which must be then marked with the day of the month. This keeping of every day's hatching separate is absolutely and essentially necessary, otherwise the worms on the same paper would moult at different times, and some would require feeding, while others would require to be left alone undisturbed. The manner of removing tho young worms i* this : Lorig narrow strips of tho mulberry loaf is hud upon them, on which they immediately climb, and tho strip of leal is then placed on the paper tray jvhichis intended for use. The process is the same throughout, except

that, after the first age, young mul-l berry twiga are substituted for the! leaves. The trav, dated, and thus] filled wit!) worms, but not too closely | so as to overcrowd one another, is thou I carried into the feeding.room, placed] upon one of the shelves or tiers, and 1 food placed upou it. During the first j age the worms require little food, but 1 that food must be finely cut up. The ' food is cut up coarser the second age, and coarser still the third age, when, indeed, the leaves are sometimes given entire, as they always are during the fourth age; branches are supplied to the worms of the fifth age. After each moulting, the remains of leaves and skins are cleaned off the papers, the worms being meanwhile removed in the manner already explained. There is a fifth cleaning, too, between the fourth moulting and the commencement of spinning the cocoon. Monsieur Blanc has the worms fed four times in the twenty-four hours, namely, at 5 iu the morning, 10 in the forenoon, 3 iu the afternoon, and Bat night. The worms of the fourth and fifth age, especially the worms of the fifth age, are fed day and night. During this latter age they eat more than they do all the rest of their lives together, and must never be allowed to want; for the more they eat and the faster, the greater will be the quantity of silk they spin. The worms which were ready to commence their cocoons had dried branches or twigs of oak placed upright along two sides of the paper trays, bent at the top, along the bottom of the shelf or tier above. Bugs and mice had begun to be destructive to the worms, but, to prevent this, deep tin bowls were being placed underneath the uprights, and filled either with water or lime. The floor of the cocoonery, too, was sprinkled twice or thrice daily with water. Monieur Blanc was making some very interesting experiments, at the time of my visit, in crossing the Californian Annuals with the French and Japanese, and seemed very sanguine that the result would give a larger worm and a much hardier one, which would produce a more valuable cocoon than is now produced in either of these countries. An ouuce of eggs prodnees from 33,000 to 40,000 worms ; 80 ozs. had been hatched by Monsieur Blanc, and the result was about 3,000,000 of worms. By keeping the eggs back, he expected to hatch altogether about 5,000,000 worms, which would give him about 22,000 ozs. of eggs, all of which are ali ready ordered at four dollars an ounce, making the returns about £19,125 for the season. I,GOO lbs. of leaves are required to feed the worms hatched from an ounce of eggs —that is to say, 35,000 worms. A tree two years old generally produces from five to seven lbs. of leaves; consequently it would take 250 trees to feed this number. Here the young trees are plucked when they are twelve months old, but Monsieur Blanc is opposed to this, and never touches the leaves of the trees at Davisville until they are two years' growth.- A tree five years old, if not picked before, produces 40 lbs. of leaves; if so picked, 25 lbs., increasing the quantity of its leaves as it grows in age. For persons entering into the business at a distance, trees one or two years old are recommended. They are safely transported, having been sent from California to Europe. The propogation by layers and cuttings is safer than by seeds ; the industry, too, can be entered into at once without having to wait a couple of years. The cost of the trees is from 75 to 100 dollars the thousand.

The following estimate of the profits was supplied to me by Monsieur Blanc :

25 ounces of eggs x by 38,000, number of worms in 1 ounce—9so,ooo; 950,000 worms, allowing for casualties, produce 900,000 cocoons; 900,000 cocoons, divided by 350, the usual number of cocoons in a pound weight, give 22851b5. 22351bs cocoons, at 4s 2d per lb. .£476 1 0 Half of this makes the proprietors' share 238 0 0 The Frenchmen's expenses will be — Their keep for six weeks, say ... .£lB O O Six extra men for ten days 8 10 O Giving them a net profit of £212 for six weeks' work. The quantity of leaves required to feed these million worms will be about 45,0001bs—IGOOlbs being the quantity allowed for an ounce of eggs, or 38,000 worms. If we allow 51bs of leaves to each tree, and this is a low estimate, we find that 9000 trees, two acres say, give a gross return of £476. This, however, I am inclined to think high, my own opinion being that from £l2O to £l5O an acre may be expected, and that the expense of cultivating and attending the worms may be put down at from £25 to £35 per acre, leaving £IOO an acre as the clear profit. This is certainly an estimate, erring, if at all, in placing the return below that actually obtained. '1 his year it is supposed upwards of 20,000,000 of cocoons will be exported, when a more accurate estimate as to the profits can be obtained. I look forward, too, with much interest to the statement of receipts and expenditure of the Davisville Silk Nursery, which aro to be laid before the company in the course of a few months.

I ■ Judge Dowling, of New York, loves, it seems, a practical joke, which, however, is no joke to the prisoners. In a case of wife-beating which recently came boforo him, the following is reported :—" How catne your husband to beat you ?" " Underneath where we live there is a dance house. I was told my husband was there, and I took a woman with me and went and looked in. My husband saw me, and soon came up to our room, where he beat me and smashed the furniture." "It was not a proper place for her to go to," spoke up the husband. "It was a proper place for you, I suppose ?" " Any place is proper for men." "Do you really think so?" "Yes, sir." " "Well, then, I'll send you to the penitentiary for three months!" A western editor, in recommending a candidate, closes the list of his qualifications in this manner:—"During the rebellion he received wounds enough to kill an ordinary donkey." _ Napoleon, seeing a short man among his grenadiers, said, " Thou art very small for a grenadier." The soldier instantly replied, "If they took generals for their size you would not be one!" A single man advertising for employment, a maiden lady wrote to inform him that if he could find nothing better to do, be might come and marry her. He did so, and touched twenty thousand pounds. An old bachelor geologist was boasting that every rock was as familiar to him as the alphabet. A lady who was present declared she knew a rock of which ho was wholly ignorant. "Name it, madam," cried Ccelebs, in a rage. " It is rock the cradle sir," replied the lady. Ccelebs evaporated. A gentleman in Mayecce gave his servant-maid the following " character " the other day : —" The bearer has been in my house a year —minus 11 months. During that time she has shown herself dilligent—at the house door ; frugal—in work ; mindlul—of herself; prompt—in excuses ; friendly—towards men; faithful—to her lovers; and honest—when everything had vanished." " Brazil demands the championship " for a colored man, aged IGO, who has just died there. The memory of this \ modern Uncle Ned was so good that it ■ reached back until 1730, and his mind wore as well as his body.