The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-08
Everybody Expected to Get Rich
sixty Years Ago by Raising silk

Everybody Expected to Get Rich
sixty Years Ago by Raising silk
worms.
From the Scientific American.
James I, who almost insanely hated
tobacco, was determined that silk
worms be reared in Virginia, mainly
because he thought he could thus de-
stroy the tobacco culture. which he or
dered to be abandoned.
For a time silk culture met with
great success in Georgia. In 1853, 10000
pounds of raw silk were thence export
ed to England. Connecticut was, how
ever, the center of the industry. AS
late as 1926 the culture of silk was
very general there and also fiourished
| in achusetts.
Silk worms were fed on the white
mulberry CMorus alba), until 1880.
when there appeared the Chinese null
berry or Morus multicaulis. 1t was
| predicted that by its culture two crops
of silk could be raised annually. Soon
all the agricultural literature and the
newspapers of the country became sur
| feited with descriptions of this Won
| derful tree.
Many documents relating to sericul-
! ture were published by congress. The
vided for the payment of liberal boun-
| ties for planting mulberry trees and
raising cocoonS.
Thus it was that a speculative Juror,
veritable madness. seized upon all
classes of people, and particularly up
on the shrewd, calculating Yankee. II
ragged like an epidemic. Not only agri-
cuturists, but doctor of divinity, law
and medicine, scholars, tradesmen and
mechanics, men and women, old and
young, were infected with an insane
passion to raise mulberry trees.
Every one thought the glorious day
was dawning when each farm would
be a nursery for the young trees, and
every house have it's cocooneries and
its silk worms yielding two or more
crops of cocoons yearly. The farmers
wives and daughters when not feeding
the worms, were to reel the silk which
would become as cheap as cotton.
every woman having at least a dozen
silk dresses.
The large profits anticipated in pro-
ducing silk were Insignificant compared
with the fortunes that all expected to
make by raising the new mulberry
| tree. In 1884 trees of a seasons growth
were sold for SO to IS a hundred, but
they soon sold at S2b. $50. 800 and $500
a hundred, and sometimes 81 apiece.
There is recorded an instance of two
| trees of one seasons growth, raised
| by one Elder Sharp in North Windham,
! Conn, which We're sold at auction. The
first brought $106, and the second 500.
! Further sales were then withheld be-
cause the bidding was not considered 10
be sufficiently spirited.
When the craze reached its hight but
| little silk was produced, for everyone
was busy raising the new mulberry
tree. Men expected to make fortunes
in a few months buying land and
planting mulberry slips, and the silk
companies almost without exception
sank their capital in this way, many
| fully equipped mills being closed.
One farmer planted $1,000 worth Of
! trees in three-quarters of an acre, and
| sold them the next year for $4,000.
In 1889. just before the people came
to their senses, a nurseryman sent an
agent to France to purchase several
million of young trees. He carried $780,
900 in cash as a first payment. When
the trees arrived the inevitable crash
had come, and the nurseryman failed
| for so large an amount that he could
never reckon up his indebtedness. His
| trees were offered in vain at 81 a hun
bred for pea brush.
When the fever was over and the
| people realized that their capital stock
was suddenly worthless, they pulled
up all the mulberry trees, In a rage,
and burned them as brushwood.
In 1874 violent storm. following a
general blight. destroyed most of the
remaining morus muiticaulis trees, and
even the more hardy white mulberry
variety. This was the finishing blow,
and thus silk culture In America prac-
ever. in this country. received such a
| crushing stroke