STATE OF MAINE. IN SENATE, March 11, 1842. ORDERED, That 300 copies of the foregoing Report and Re solve, be printed for the use of the Legislature. [Extract from the Journal.] Attest, JERE HASKELL, Secretary. REPORT. THE Committee on agriculture, to which was referred the petition of Luther Carey and others, praying the Legislature to increase the bounty on Silk; also to grant a bounty on the production of Mulberry trees, have had the same under consideration, and ask leave to submit the following REPORT: The successful results, which have attended the various experiments in producing the mulberry tree, in the rearing of the silk worm, and in the whole art of growing and making silk, have sufficiently proved, that Maine may become a silk growing State. Several varieties of the mulberry tree are well adapted to our soil, and will endure the severe rigor of our long winters unharmed. There are numerous thrifty nurseries of this tree, in the older parts of the State, and the interest in this culture is daily extending itself in the community. It attains to a great age and size, and is worthy to be cultivated as an ornamental and shade tree in addition to its more "intrinsic value." The silk worm is easily raised, is healthier, and spins a more durable and a better thread in our northern climate, than when reared and fostered in a milder zone. It toils and spins during the entire period of its existence, and arrays itself in a beautiful buff robe, the production of its own industry, vieing in beauty of costume with the gayest ephemerals of fashion. Silk, not many years since, was numbered with the luxuries which are the exclusive possession of the opulent, and was worn only by the queens of the earth, or by those of their subjects, who could vie with princesses in the possession of wealth and the enjoyment of its appliances. It is now, very generally worn by our whole population, and our American queens, our female sovereigns, the princesses "by hereditary succession," and "rulers by divine right," of their divine charms, daily present themselves to the admiring view clad in silken array. The silk culture, is among the pleasantest, most profitable, and healthful of all occupations. It is emphatically "an out door business," and during the period of gathering the leaves from the mulberry and supplying the worms with food, performed in the most delightful season of the year, forms a delightful employment for children and young persons, and may easily occupy the hours, and release the painful tedium of persons in infirm health. All its labor is light, pleasant and instructive, and those |