The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-17
Store Will Be Closed All Day Wednesday on Account Of Holiday

the fostering care of the state. Con
 neeticut gave cash bounty not only 1 for eocoons but for the planting of null l berry trees. Massachusetts, Ohio. Yer i mont, Kentucky and Georgia offered l bounties for cocoons and reeled silk. Then came the great "morus multicau | lis craze which swept over the whole | country and wrecked the fortunes of 1 thousands of small farmers and large | spectators. Silk worms are voracious l eaters, and must be fed leaves of 1 certain varieties of mulberry trees, or l upon the leaves of the Osage orange. The 1 white mulberry, or 'morus alba had l been the food of the American silk worms. l Now came nursery man and spread 1 it abroad that the Chinese mulberry, the .'morus multicaulis." was the salvation of the silk business. It was advertised l to grow rapidly as Jonahs gourd and 1 to give several crops of leaves each sea l son.
 The nurseries could not supply the de- mand and prices for the cutting of the trees went up until a little twig of ''morus multicaulis' was worth it's weight in gold. Cotton, corn, wheat and cattle
 were forgotten. Everybody was to get
 rich raising silk worms. One New Jersey man set out an orchard of 100000 trees. Silk worm eggs were imported and sold at fabulous prices. A dozen silk cul- ture Journals were started and immedi-
 ately gained a large circulation among the farmers.
 All went on merrlly until 1889 when 1t was discovered that there were no returns
 from these wonderful trees and worms.
 The bubble burst in a moment, and the
 nurseries could not sell their precious
 cuttings for ten cents hundred for sticking pea vines. The silk culture jour
 nals died. The heavy winter frosts killed
 all the Chinese mulberry trees In the
 north. and southern orchards were al
 lowed to run wild. The ''morus multicau
 lis' liked the south, however, and the
 descendants of those princely seedlings are now growing In the woods of the southern states.
 The next revival started in California
 Just after the Civil war under the guid-
 ance of a Frenchman named Provost.
 Tn 1884 Congress took action and appro-
 priated money for the encouragement
 of the industry. These appropriations
 were continued until 1891 without appre
 eiable results. In 19O2 Congress again
 took up the work and the department
 of agriculture Is pushing 1t with all the
 vgor possible. The United States has
 expended 900 since 1884 in the encour-
 ngement of silk culture. Thus far the
 returns have been very small indeed.
 The great craze of the thirties was not
 altogether without beneficial results.
 Mills for the manufacture of silk were
 set up in New England and New Jer-
 sey in connection with the silk culture
 farms. When the American cocoons did not produce enough raw silk. the mills i'm
 ported 1t and laid the foundation for
 the great American silk manufacturing
 business of today.
 The reason for the failure of silk cul-
 ture in the United States Is the high price
 of American labor. The cocoons grown
 In America, especially those in California.
 are of the highest quality. But the
 silk worm requires as much attention as a. sick baby the work of reeling the
 silk from the cocoons is tedious, and the price of labor in this country is so
 high that the silk obtained costs much more than that imported from other countries. Chinese and Japanese work
 ing for few cents day produce silk
 so cheaply that Americans can hope to
 compete with them only by the introduc-
 ton of improved methods of culture and feeding, and of taking care of the silk. To this end. the energies of the govern
 ment experts are bent and for this pur- pose the government Is trying to encour- age many people as will to grow silk In a small way. As side issue on a farm, and for the employment of those who have little regular work at home, | silk culture offers not only a profitable. but an exceedingly interesting line of ex- perimentation The secretary of agricul-
 ture will give full information if any
 body will write to him on the subject
 The uses of silk were discovered by l Si-Iing-Chi, wife of Hoang-Ti third en- | peror of China, who fourished at the time when Joseph. son Q Jacob, was | ruler of Egypt. The empress was di- | rected by her imperial husband to ex- amino the silk worms and see if their | thread could be utilized. The legend l tells that she fed the worms with her l own hands and invented the method of
 unwinding the long thread of silk which | Is substantially the same as that now | in use For two thousand years the | Chinese kept the origin of silk pro- | found secret. They sold tho cloth to | the Persians, the Hebrews, the Greeks
 and Romans. but those people believed the hbre was the product of a plant like | cotton. Even after the story os the wonderful little worm was known, the
 industry was Chinese monopoly for it
 was forbidden to carry any of the eggs l out of China on pain of death.
 Two Nestorian monks who had been
 spreading the Christian religion In China
 came back to Europe in the year 6S5 with
 a few silk worm eggs concealed in
 the hollow of their slaves An Indian 1 princess carried some eggs in her turban l to India. Thus the business spread from | China. The Emperor Justinian took the | Nestorian monks into his charge and they
 raised silk for him. He made 1t a | government monopoly and laid a prohiRi- 1 tive tariff against foreign silks. He raised
 the price of silk to eight times its former
 value and compelled princes and potenates l to dress in uniforms of silk. It enriched | the imperial treasury, for silk was then
 worth It's weight in gold At his death l the monopoly was broken up and the ! business spread over Europe and the
 whole known world. An earlier Roman
 emperor, Aurelian, refused to buy his em- ! press silken gown because of the ex l travagance of 1t. Although America
 has failed as grower of the precious
 fibre it is a fact that every American
 is better off In that respect that the
 Roman empress, for in ribbon. neck-tie | or dress, every man. woman and child | in the United States sometimes wears a | bit of the cloth woven from the thread | spun by the busy little worms.