Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-04-30
SIM Cultnre IN the united States.


meeting held yesterday, the details of its
correspondence with silk growers in the
West and South, and in Pennsylvania,
were presented, showing the actual cost
and care required TO raise brood of silk
worms, and how silk culture can be made
to pay.
We have recently received from the
above association a circular entitled
"Silk from the census focus" which
gives some very interesting information
on the subject. From this circular we
learn that the silk manufactures of the
United States paid in wages last year
over nine millions of dollars. The
amount of capital invested is nearly
nineteen millions, the number of fac
tories is three hundred and eighty-three;
the number Of looms, eight thousand
four hundred and sixtyseven. The
value of finished goods for the year
ending June 80. 1880, was thirty-four
millions four hundred and ten thou
sand, four hundred and sixty-three
dollars. This gave employment through
out the year to large number Of per
sons. The highest number employed at
any one time was thirty-four thousand
four hundred and ten. Such an indus
try accounts for some late developments
in Switzerland. Formerly Americans
bought largely of Swiss ribbons. Consul
Mason, of Basic, reports that for three
or four years previous to the year 1878,
there were sent to the United States from
the Basic district silk ribbons to the
value of $s.5OO,OOO annually. In 1879
but $S11 PA worth of ribbons were ex-
ported, and the number of factories re-
duced from twenty-six to eight. Last year
there was quite revival of trade at Basic,
but the figures to date serve to point
out what was happening in the United
States during these years. We had be-
gun to make our own ribbons. They are
better than the imported, because they
are purer. In that one word is the Sc
cret and success Of American silk. Con-
sui Peixotto, at Lyons, has made an
estimate that the total yield of the world
in silk last year was nineteen millions of
pounds, largely furnished from Japan.
The product of the japanese cocoons
alone were valued in 1876. the last year
of available statistics, at thirty-one mil
lions of dollars. Much of this comes
across America on its way to Europe,
for manufacture. Our own factories in
Philadelphia, in New Jersey, in Massa-
chusetts, Missouri. and elsewhere, i'm
port every year an increasing quantity
of reeled and raw silk, silk waste, &C.,
to supply the steadily growing silk man
ufacture Why not, says the PhilAdel-
phia ,Sak School, keep some of this
money at home?
There seem to be two great obstacles
in the way One is that the great
m0rus multieaulis speculation of some
years ago, which is doubtless well re-
membered by many of our readers, i'm
pressed it upon the minds of the people
generally that there was something dis
astrous about silk culture, and it is only
now, that large factories have been sue.
cessfully established in Paterson, New
Jersey, and Philadelphia, that it is be-
ginning to be realized that there is money
in it, and a prospect of much more
in the future. The other obstacle is the
great difficulty heretofore experienced
in successfully competing with the cheap
labor of Europe, China and Japan in
Keeling the silk.
Both these difficulties are about to be
overcome. The first is, as we have
stated, already virtually done away with,
as it has been practically deT onstrated
that the manufacture of silk in the
United States is profitable, and that the
silk worm can be bred, and cocoons
raised abundantlY in this country, wher-
ever the mulberry or the Usage orange
grow. We see from the circular alluded
to, and which is now before US, that
there were raised IN one farm house at
Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, last year, in six
weeks time, and merely as an expert
ment, thirty pounds of cOcoons, and fif-
teen ounces of eggs, and the cocoons are
worth two dollars pound, and the eggs
from three to five dollars an ounce. A
North Carolina farmer also writes that
he has put up one hundred and fifty
racks this year, four feet long by three
wide, and each rack is to accommodate
two thousand worms. He expects to
raise this summer one thousand barrels
of cocoons.
AS to the second difficulty it is stated
that Mr.. E. W. Serrell, of New York, a
young American engineer, has invented
an electric machine which will not only
render silk reeling prosperous in this
country, but which will turn out
superior quality of thread, and his in
vention has proven entirely successful.
The culture of silk in the United
States, according to statistics gathered
by Mr.. Peixotto, would prove a great
source Of profit. 1t would, he says,
''give employment to hundreds of thou
sands of hands, women and children,
now idle or non-producing. 1t would at
the same time afford the masses an ele
CANT and durable material at about one
third less the actual cost, and it would
give to capital new and lucrative source
of investment, shared at present but by
few individuals, and restricted to ex-
ceedingly limited proportions.
We again heartily commend this sub
ject to the attention of our readers, for
in this section the mulberry and Usage
orange flourish without trouble, and our
farmers wives and daughters might east
ly and at trifing cost make the expert
ment of producing silk worms and CO.
coons, and they might derive therefrom
handsome returns, and eventually add
largely to the wealth of the South. There
- NJ daprar fhot +ha Yoorbat mill ha