The leader., 1895-09-24
SEND ALL THE BOYS.
Arp Hopes That All Of Them viii
Get to the Exposition.
VIII ne = Liberal Educstion-.Biit Talks si
Ills Experien6, id Raising silk.
worms--He Is Tired Of street
Car Agitation.

The exposition gets bigger and bigger.
The managers have buided wiser than
they knew. and everything concerning it
seems TO prosper, 1t will be great show
and a great school. / wish that every
youth in this Southern land who is over
~ years Of age could visit 1t. They would
learn more in day than they can leafn
in year from books. The sight is the
very best receptive of knowledge. The
best way to study geography is to travel,
ard the best way to study art is to see
things made by the artist or the me-
chanic. | see that a Philadelphia Hose
house will have silk worms there making
their cocoons and will reel the silk from
them and spin and weave it into cloth
and will sell you cravat for song.
/ make mention of this because when
was lad my father carried on that same
business of making silk in LawrenceYille,
Ga. and for three years | had to pick
mulberry leaves in their season and feed
them to the greedy worms. l had to get
up before day and go to the morus multi
caufus orchard and pick the leaves while
the dew was on and carry tuem In sacks
to the slkhouse and scatter them all over
the hurdles and the greedy worms would
eat them all up before breakfast. The
big worms that were two to two and
half inches long were kept In one row Of
hurdles and were given the coarser
leaves: smaller ones were graded down
according to age and the little worms,
half an inch long, had to have the young
and tender leaves. When the worms
were full grown and had devoured till
FL lvnu xx-sth l.
berry fiber they settled down to business
and spun their winding sheet in the shape
Of cocoon. The<l cocoohs were beat1ti-
full little things, about as large as
pecan nut and of the same shape. Tiey
were of different colors. Some were pure
white, some green, some pink. some red,
some yellow and all were bright and
glossy. The worm got smaller as he
wrapped his web around him, and by the
time the cocoon was dohr 1t had changed
its shape and turned into chfysalis, an
ugly brown thing that had neither head
nor tail visible. 1t passed into a coma
tose condition for awhile and them came
TO life again and cut its way out of the
cocoon ip the shape of a butterfly or large
futtering moth and crawled about over
the hurdles to find some place to lay its
eggs. These eggs soon hatched out little
silk worms that went to eating leaves
Just like their greedy ancestors.
But we dident wait for many to cut their
way out Of the cocoons. We put them In
a pot of hot water and they staid COMA
tose all the rest of their lives. We would
have perhaps hundred cocoons floating
on the top of the hot water and with a
tiny brush would catch up the delicate
ibers Of silk from thirty to forty cocoons
and make thread of all of them to-
gether and having fastened that thread
to reel close by We would turn the reel
Just like our grandmothers used to turn
it in winding spun truck-turn it until it
clicked and then fake the cut off and
begin again. Just so, we reeled the raw
silk and kept putting more cocoons in the
hot water. In this way we reeied of
every bit of the winding sheet and left
the ugly dead chrysalis floating on the
water When they accumulated SO as to
be in the way we skinned them out and
threw them away.
This is only an outline of the business,
AID l want the young folks to see how
the thing is done from the tiny little egg
to the raw silk upon the reel and from
there to the loom. My father was pio-
ueer in the morus multicalus craze, as IL
was called. and l think the only man in
Georgia who made silk and sold it.
remember that one year he sold $Ooo
worth at one shipment and he sold some
other smaller lots. He would have con-
tinued the business but his trees took the
"die back" or something and he had to
give il Nd 1t was said that the continued
stripping of the leaves will kill them in
about three years, for the leaves are the
lungs of plants and they can't keep on
making new lungs just to please silk
worms. These trees were grown from cut
tings and we began to strip them the
second year, when they We're about as
large as a broom handle. They had no
branches and were about as far apart as
young apple trees in nursery. We strip
ped them like pulling fodder, coming down
with both hands and leaving only few
leaves at the top. 1t would have been
good fun if it had not been so monotonous
and required so much of Ben Franklin S
advice about early to bed and early to
rise" etc. / haven't gotten over that
habit yet, but it hasent made me wealthy
or wise. / never have found out how one
worm can get red silk out of a mulberry
leaf and another one will get white or
yellow.
l heard Capt. Evan Howell make a
speech once and he got eloquent and
humble as he said: MY friends, we are
helpless and ignorant creatures. We
know nothing hardly about the mysteries
of nature that are all around us. The
good book says: Great is the mystery of
.,o.7l;noS,-, Wa cant foil whv II ia fha 4
when goose eats grass the
grass turns to feathers aud when
horse cats grass it turns to
hair and when sheep cats grass it turns
into WOOL And he might have added
and when worm eats mulberry leaves it
turns to silk.
! The exposition has been a great strain
upon Atlanta, but that town is smart
and gamey and will make it a grand sue
cess. When the scheme was first pro-
posed we outsiders never said anything
to discourage il, but we smiled and whis-
pered was there ever such cheek. Right
after the great Chicago Fair and right
In the middle of a iinan .ial panic for .
little city Of only 10000 reople to propose
such an absurd scheme is perfectly ridic-
ulous. And to think Of the impudence Of
asking for the patronage. Of the national
government and IN appropriation.
But the managers kept right ca and
haye never faltered for moment. And
they got the Smifhsonian institution apd
the Liberty bell and they seriousIy ass.
.ussei the practic1bjlify Of borrowing the
Bart6oldi statue Or liberty from New
York harbor and putting il up In Clara
Hfaar sssE IS s