Volume 65: Macarthur-Onslow correspondence, 1846-1929: No. 411
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[Page 411]
16
Then our climate suits the worm no less than it suits the mulberry; the Italians say that in Italy the rearers always count on losing twenty per cent of the worms in each rearing, here they believe they have not lost one and it must be remembered that their accommodation at the little settlement has been of the rudest kind, the worms living on old bags, instead of proper trays, instead of in well-built magnaneries, yet under this rough treatment, the broods did well, and prospered beyond all hope.
Their silk has since taken a first prize at the Chicago Exhibition.
PREVIOUS FAILURES.
We advocates of this neglected industry are met with the objection, "But it has already been tried, and it has failed." If we had not fairly considered these failures and the causes of them, and if we had not good reason to belive that these causes were but temporary and avoidable, we certainly should not feel justified in urging anyone to try again. To begin with, has any large industry ever been established without repeated preliminary failures? I think not. Such are inevitable, where the work and the new conditions under which it has to develope are but imperfectly understood.