The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1904-01-06
MONEY IN SILK CULTURE.
Or. BEDLOE'S VIEWS ON ITS PR0PA-
CATION IN AMERICA.
Well Known Orientalist Tells How the SILK
Industry Can Be Followed by Farm
ers of Limited Means.

DR.. Edward Bedloe, the well known
orlentalist, who recently returned to
Washington from Japan, where he in
vestigated the silk culture with special
reference to its introduction and propa-
CATION in the United States, says:
The people of the United States con
sumo practically half of the worlds
silk output, and it means an enormous
gain to us if we can keep this money in
the country. We have made a few at
tempts in a small way to grow silk,
but it is well worth the greatest effort.
We have not yet tried seriously. We
want to give our home farmers and
manufacturers the benefit of that i'm
mense trade if we can. and we are the
people to do it.
I'm the middle and southern states
and on the Racifc slope we haYe all
the most favorable varieties of climate
and soil-in fact, we have conditions
Sar superior to the rest of the world
for growing the mulberry and cultivat-
ing all the best species Of silkwOrm by
the best methods,
"The early settlers of Pennsylvania
and other of the original states gave
much attention to silk culture, but
other pursuits have rather crowded it
out. Now. by the aid of the govern
ment, the industry is being revived in
% 1,A ,1fNt1 q
suits of careful and systematic expert
ments. conducted on the most practical
and scientific basis by the department
of agriculture, have demonstrated the
possibilities and given some tangible
idea of profits to the American farmer.
"a family can Pake more money in
eight weeks in six culture than the
same family would make in whole
year by raising a crop of cotton. The
farmer may still have the cotton crop
and add the silk to it without incon-
venience. One does not interfere with
the other. Mulberry trees, the leaves
of which form the natural and only
food of the silkWOrms, can be grown
along the fences of the cotton fields and
in odd corners of the farm to provide
for the worms. There is involved no
great outlay for plant or stock for the
production of raw silk.
at is a business in which the farmer
of limited means may engage as well
as his wealthy neighbOr, and there is
no practical possibility of market
prices ever coming down so as to cut
profits close There is always a very
ample margin, more than in most crops.
Moreover. the silk industry can be
made a side issue, as it were, to be at
tended to by the wife and children, like
the poultry rearing
During Mr.. Bedoe's stay in Yoko-
hama the Japan Gazette published an
article in reference to his visit and in
vestigation, of which the following is
an extract:
"There is at present a movement in
the United States to compete with ia
pan in silk culture, which is one of the
principal sources of this countrys rev.
enue. America is a wealthy country
to have a rival in anything and has
shown sufficient power to materially
affect some of the big industries of
Great Britain.
There was a time when the United
States had to depend chiefly on Great
Britain for iron and steel and many
other manufactured goods, but the Wig
orous protectionist policy CT the Amer
leans has made Il vast change.
''Some of the southern states have
for years competed in the rice growing
business, and America bids fair to at
tain in course of time position of pre-
dominance in that as in corn and -four
IF now she is to do the same with
silk it will be a far more serious mat
ter to Japan than the absolute loss Of
Korea could be. 1t would not profit
Japan to dominate half the territory Of
Asia and lose all her trade. Her silk
is more to her than her continental am
billions. The menace of her staple in
dustry is a greater danger than the
Russian"