The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-21
FREE SILK WORMS AND TREES
Farmers of then South Can Have
 Them Sent for the Asking.

NaSnlngtOn POst.
 Dr. Howard. the chief "bugologst" of the Agricultural Department, has begun to scat ter the eggs of the Chinese silk worm broad cast the South. Of course. they sent through the mail done up in small packages. Anybody living south of Mason and Dixon's line can get an assignment of these eggs mere ly by writing to Dr. Howard and assuring him that there Is white mulberry tree on the farm of the writer. If the seeker of Chinese silk worm eggs has no white mulberry tree he
 can get one by writing to the chief of the forestry division of the Agricultural Depart
 ment. This official. Professor Pinchot. like Dr. Howard, has been instructed by Secretary Wilson to supply promptly everw request made by the farmers of the South for the means whereby they can begin hte culture of silk
 worms The plants have been brought over by the tens of thousands from France and Italy.
 part of the United States, though very good specimens of it occasionally found in vari
 ous parts fthe country. The Chinese silk
 worm is domesticated animal and refuses
 to eat the leaves of our mulberry trees Its taste for the white variety is the result of more than four thousand years of cultivation.
 Experiments at the Agricultural Department under the personal supervision of Secretary Wilson have shown that when the imported Chinese silk worm makes a meal on leaf from common American mulberry tree one of two regrettable results follows: Either the silk worm dies the product of its mysterious loom is not silk. When the so-called silk that Is found in this country Is fed the leaves of the white mulberry tree 1t gets enor- mously fat in wefhours, spins a cocoon that is as hard as an egg shell, but that con tains not thread of silk, thne proceeds to bore hole through the cocoon and sail out
 into the world a butterfly of gaudy colors
 The worm from China would bore it's way out of his sken cocoon, too. If 1t had chance. and would hutter around just long enough to find its mate. but its color would be modest drab The Chinese worms cocoon is valuable for it's silk that few of ts kind permitted to emerge from the chrysa-
 lis state. How they killed in China and in those parts of Europe where silk culture is carried on successfully Is now known. Secretary Wilson has devised his own means of checking the development of the worm in the crysas stage. He puts the cocoons in an artght box and then pours a half ounce of bi-sulphide of creature than is then half and half
 butterfly dies and the thousands of sken
 threads or flaments are then not cut by the butterfly boring it's way out through the large end of the cocoon.
 There are, by the way. according to Secre- tary Wilson's count, loo yards of silken thread in each cocoon developed at the Agricultural Department This thread Is just about the size l'of the thread spun by spider. Secretary Will son believes that the small farmer at the South will find the culture of the Chinese silk worm profitable after they learn how to conduct it. Some of the white mulberry plants that he scattered through that part of the country three years ago now large enough to sup
 ply the necessary food to the worm, and he is anxious for those who have the tree to begin feeding the worms. He is having prepared de- tailed description of how to treat the worms so as to get the best results.