The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-27
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
The silk- Worm and sink Culture.


To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
can inform your inquirer. E. R. c., that the
common wild mulberry is proper food for silk
worms. but it used to be said that it did not pro-
duce as good silk as the white or Usage orange.
About sixty years ago there was quite an inter
est. in small way, in the s;lk-worm business
about Jacksonville, Switzerland county. The
worms were fed on wild leaves, and we small
boys were glad to drop the corn hoe to 60 to the
woods and climb the trees for them, but finally
the white tree was procured and propaeated,
and q little later the "Morus muticaulus" va
riety was introduced, Itshad very large leaves,
and grew rapidly, and for time there was as
much furore about the speculations in that as
there was in the Shanghai rooster, the intro
duction of both being about the same time, and
seemed to be doomed by about the same parties.
In 1882 the silk business was about to be doomed
immensely by one N. q. NJ. Sentes, who came
from Philadelphia, or its neighborhood, in New
Jersey, where they had made, already, consider
able headwav in the business, and where they
are still at it, believe He claimed to be an
agent to introduce or encourage silk culture, but
proved to be lacking In every other qualification
but wind; though in the spring Of 1894 he did
procure 10000 silk-worm eggs, and arranged
with one family to feed the worms. The previ-
Gus winter had been unusually mild, and the
spring very early, so that by the Goth of March
peach trees which stood in almost evary fence
corner, were going out of bloom, and
the air almost as full of the flying blossoms
as OF snow in q young winters blizzard.
One month later the peaches were as large as
small bird eggs, and every other variety of fruit
equally forward and abundant The young
twigs on the mulberry and other wood of rapid
growth were foot or more in length. and silk
worm eggs had been hurrieily Matched, to be
ready for the young leaves. The worms were
an inch In length, and everything promising
fine outcome when the morning of the 10Th of
April became chilly, and by nightfall there was
ing everything that frost would affect was stiff.
BY . o'clock all vegetation that was affected
young growth OF trees, etc., was dropping and
as black as a mourning garb. Fortu-
by dint of great effort, enough
OF that was procured to save three hundred of
all those worms, that finally wound themselves
up into cocoons. That about ended the silk
culture there. 1t is safe to say there was not
peck of any kind of fruit in that county that
year. and on the heels of that calamity came
the caterpillars, which stripped forests and or
chards, alike, of their green robes. One great
calamity that was felt by the average citizen
alike was the almost destruction of a onehun-
dred acre orchard, on the Ohio river bottom
just below Vevay. and owned by the then fam
Gus Rev Geo. Craig, and whose fame consisted
mostly in once having "run" for, the Legisla-
ture, on one particular hobby, which was, to
have the penitentiary built on wheels SO rs to
travel over the country, and have the convicts
to work the roads. This incident may not
though, account for the present fame of his now
famous grandson, Rev Edward Eggleston,
While the caterpillar is up it may not be amss
to answer the query often suggested in the
mind, What will save fruit trees from destruc-
ton by that pest9" will answer it by saying
that we saved very fine wild cherry tree that
stood in our door.yard by boring into it with an
augur large enough to admit roll of birthstone,
when we drove a plug into the hole over it.
The caterpillars had covered, literally every
inch of space on the tree to the very tips of the
branches; but before they had made hardly a
perceDtible beginning to eat the leaves, the
strength of the birthstone had been 90 effectually
carried to them by the rising sap that they let 60
and came down to the foot of the tree, where
they collected in a mass that peck measure
would not cover. and died, all in that heap.
A. S. KINGSLEY