Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-04-11
The SiIk Culture at the South.

Editor Morning Ncps: Poor Richard,
in his letter Of Thursdays issue. has re-
minded me of a method employed in
school.day times lat NELLIE. e q Client,
Belgium,) which might perhaps be fol
lowed in families or communities where
silk culture is contemplated in the South.
Above each bed in the dormitories,
shelves were placed OF which we were
allowed to keep u trays or boxes gen
orally of stiff paper or cardboard). o n
tanning the silk worms, and in due time
paper cones were pinned or tackled
to the wall on either side,
our beds containing the
cocoons in process of webbing. As we
numbered over one hundred and twenty
scholars the dormitories became quite q
respectable raw silk factory, which af-
fo1ded great pleasure, and, to our humble
expectations, profit to boys OF all ages,
from six to eighteen or more. We fed
the silk worms on either the common
wild or the cultivated mulberry leaf, and
sometimes the ordinary table lettuce
leaf was used when mulberry was scarce.
We shifted the worms into clean trays
daily, using, when they were very small,
the ordinary quill feather to lift them
on to mulberry leaves laid
in the clean trays arranged
separately, according to their size and
age. When the cocoons were formed,
we pun them off ourselves, on wheels of
our own manufacture, either dropping
the cocoon into covered glasses of tepid
water, with a hole in the cover for the
film of silk to wind through, or, more
generally, holding the cocoon in the
mouth until the silk had been wound
off. Perhaps Poor Richards" plan of
sitting or scalding, and packing the
cocoons to the silk manufactures, Is the
better one, the only advantage of ours
being that we could put the chrysalis
into boxes or trays of bran. and so OBJ
tain our eggs, when Lady Morn appeared
to do her share of work.
The raw silk, after winding, was ar
ranged according to depth of shade
within sheets of clear foolscap paper
and entrusted to one of the teachers, who
sold our produce for III in Client, keep
ing a separate account with each boy.
Of course each of US strove to outvie the
others as silk capitalists, and indeed
prizes were given to the most successful.
Thus many an hour was well employed,
and it would seem easy for children in
families here in the South, either at
home or at school, in town or in the
country, to do as we were taught to do.
Where mulberry leaves were difficult to
obtain, small stores might spring up as
thick as candy stalls, where the children
could purchase and sell stock, and
eventually public failures might be re-
established in Savannah, and the history
of a century and a half ago repeat itself
to-day.
While l write, the Germans of the
city are assembling to welcome a
a new colony from the Fatherland, and
a new Oglethorpe pilots them to the Sa
vannah. Descendants of the Saltz
burgers may resd again the story of 1875,
when, as is chronicled in the book of
Charles G. Jones, Jr., (The Dead Towns
Of Georgia, page 26) Gin 1875. Queen
Caroline, upon the Kings birthday, ap-
peared in a full robe of Georgia silk"
At the least, the plan above suggested
might employ the minds of the young,
and, perhaps, the children of larger
growth" with amusement, leading, it
might be, to profit. Respectfully,
BARTON HILL.
SaCannaA. Ga, April 9, 1881.