try, needs only the encouragement to be derived from the establishment of co-operative branches to compete successfully with European skill. 3. As to the regeneration and spinning of silky waste of all kinds, the United States find themselves in as good a position as most other countries to undertake a work of this sort, inasmuch as they possess equal facilities for procuring the waste and raw silk. This branch of industry in France gives employment to more than 30,000 workmen, and the annual production exceeds $20,000,000.

4. With regard to the automatic weaving of plain stuffs, the United States already compete successfully with the more experienced nations. of Europe. Looms exhibited by American constructors at the Paris Exposition were highly appreciated for their ingenious contrivances and remarkable improvements.

Three specialties remain, therefore, to excel in which time and effort only are necessary, viz: The rearing of silk-worms, the reeling of the cocoons into raw silk, and the weaving of figured goods. As has already been shown in this article, the culture of the mulberry in many portions of this country has proved very successful-in some eminently so. The cocoons of California are equal to any in the world. Native silk once supplied in sufficient quantities to enlist the inventive genius and mechanical aptitude of our people, will speedily solve the problems presented in the remaining specialties just cited. The country which produces the most skillful and careful spinners of wool and cotton manufactures will not despair of arriving eventually at the successful production of the many kinds of silk goods within its province.

MANUFACTURING IN THE UNITED STATES.

The present processes in American silk manufacture are thus described in the New York Tribune, with a reference to the localities and personnel of the business at the present time:

"The first process is to sort the raw silk into sizes, great care being required in every stage that the threads be equal in size, as inequality would produce a manufacture of uneven and unmanageable twist. It is then soaked in soapy water to dissolve the gum and render the thread pliable and elastic. The skeins are slipped upon octagonal, wicker 'swift' reels, a dozen or more of which revolve on an axis fastened on the legs of each table. A thread from each reel-skein passes upward over a smooth metal or glass rod, fixed on the lateral edge of the table to its revolving bobbin, upon which it is wound. After this process the thread is guided between the contiguous edge of two sharp steel knives, resem bling scissors, which cleans it of gummy lumps and clinging waste, to another bobbin. This process occasions considerable waste. The finer and more regular threads are now taken for making organzines, which are the warps of woven goods. Coarser threads are taken for trams or woofs. The most inferior are used for the manufacture of sewing-silks. Loose and broken ends are corded like cotton and spun into floss for embroidery. The twisting or 'throwing' process is done by passing the thread of raw silk from an upright bottom through the eye of a craned wire flyer, which rapidly spins with the top of the bobbin revolv ing above. This thread is called a 'single,' and for organzines receives from twelve to nineteen twists to the inch. Organzines or trams are made by twisting together two of these twisted threads in an opposite direction to the former single twist, at the rate of from ten to seventeen turns to the inch; the two threads having previously been wound parallel upon one bobbin. Organzines receive tight twisting, to induce

strength and elasticity. A swing of two twists to the inch sometimes saves five cents to the pound in the cost of labor, but may occasion greater loss in weaving. Two or three threads of raw silk twisted loosely two or four times to the inch is tram, shute, or woof. In weaving, the woof has little or no strain upon it, and it fills up the warp better by being soft and loose. The twist in silk threads is set by dampening and drying. Skein sewing-silk is made of three to ten threads. twisted together, and two of these latter doubled. Sewing-machine silk is trebly twisted. Button-hole twist is the same, with a tighter twist. Twists in the single threads of sewing-silks are ten to fifteen to the inch; and the doubled, eight to twelve. The organzines are reeled into skeins of one or two thousand yards each, care being taken to make them of the exact length, as that compared with their weight determines the quality of the goods to be woven. The American sewing-silk machine is a great improvement over the old-fashioned one. By the aid of a few girls, the former at once doubles and twists the silk, and reels it into skeins of equal length; and it turns out one hundred and twenty-five pounds a week. The cost of throwing raw silk into organzines is four to five dollars per pound, a great proportion of that going to labor. Trams cost less. After weighing, the threads go to the dyer, who is charged with the weight; also with the number of skeins. As the manufacturer knows how much of each color should be returned, little fraud or error can happen. Up to the time the silk goes to the dyer, there is a loss of three to nine per cent. from cleaning, breaking, &c. It loses eighteen to twenty-five per cent. of the weight in dyeing by the boiling off of the worm gum, which is made up greatly by surcharging with sugar or dye. In the dye-house the silk skeins are tied to prevent tangling, and boiled for four or five hours in coarse linen bags, by which the hempy colors attain a luster. Yellowish colors are 'counteracted' to pure white by the use of a little blue dye. This white dyeing costs sixty cents a pound-less than any other color. Of white colors the manufacturer receives back from the dyer twelve ounces for every pound. The aniline or bright colors cost $1 50 to $3 50 a pound to dye. The bright greens are the most expensive. They also return twelve ounces to the pound. High colors are cheapened in the weight by the addition of three ounces of sugar to twelve of silk. Drabs and slate are dyed with sumac at a cost of a dollar a pound, and return fourteen ounces. Blacks are dyed with nitrate of iron and cutch, and also logwood, a bluish shade, especially for velvets, being desirable. Blue-blacks return fourteen ounces; plain blacks the full complement, losses being compensated by surcharging. Surcharging can be carried to the extent of trebling the weight of the silk. After dyeing, the skeins are dried on bars in a close-steamed room, and then lustered by passing over hot cylinders. Sewing-silk is softened by wringing, and tied into skeins for sale. Trams and organzines are then rewound upon bobbins, and again rewound to give a proper tension to the thread before weaving.

PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS.

"Such is the extent to which the American trade has usually been carried, though pongees and foulards were woven in Connecticut, and ribbons in Baltimore, twenty years ago. During the last ten years the manufacture of ribbons has increased rapidly. The Cheney Brothers, of Hartford, are making great quantities of parasol coverings; the Dole Company, at Paterson, N. J., are making tailors' trimmings, scarfs, and braids;

Dexter, Lambert & Co., of the same city, make this season 3,000 yards of knotted fringes, and 2,500 yards of bullion fringes, per day, driving foreign goods out of the market. The processes of trimming manufac ture are too intricate and tedious for popular description. An examination of the goods will show a delicately knotted thread, on a base of cotton wound with silk. Broad silks are woven upon the plain loom, and figured ones upon the Jacquard. The operations are delicate and costly. To get the proper length of warp for piece, and at the same time to lay a sufficient number of the warp threads together, amounting sometimes to 5,030 or 6,000, the threads from a great number of bobbins, rolling in a frame like the old school counting-frame, are reeled backward and forward together on a large reel. These again are rewound upon a large drum to give them tension and lay them the right distance. apart, the operation being afterward completed by passing each thread by hand between the teeth of a large brass comb, and while they are stretched cleaning them by hand with small scissors. Narrow goods are woven upon a small adaptation of the plain or the Jacquard looms, a dozen or more of which are operated upon the same table. Watered goods are made by laying a piece of woven plain goods upon another, and passing them between iron cylinders, one heated, the tension and abrasion of the surfaces producing the watered effect. In chiné goods, the figure is painted upon the close warp and woven in by the woof. "Shot" goods are woven with the warp of one color, and the woof of another. For the best ribbons Italian warps are used. Bandannas and other loose goods are made of waste and cocoon covers, scutched, chopped, and spun like cotton. This "spun" is also used by some Ameri can manufacturers for the woofs of broad goods. The Murray mill, at Paterson, was about to be used in this trade before it was recently burned. Inferior silks are produced altogether from "spun," but the latter, being loose in texture, is best if used as a woof, with a web of pure silk warp, when it makes a good article.

"At the present time American silk fabrics are competing favorably with European goods. La braids and trimmings we have driven foreigners out of the market, and our ribbons are purchased as freely as theirs. But it is with broad silks that the manufacturer will experiment, and produce, and succeed, during the next ten years. P.G.Givenaud, of West Hoboken, N. J., and John N. Sterns, of First Avenue, New York, now turn out respectively several thousand yards of gros grain silks per week, which no man in the trade can tell from the best imported articles, and which retail on Broadway for $5 per yard. With the present tariff of sixty per cent. American manufacturers can throw and weave silk goods at a profit of fifteen per cent. There are now in Philadelphia thirty trimming factories, those of Graham, Horstmann, (carriage and military trimmings,) and Hensel & Cornet, being the largest. At Hartford and South Manchester, Conn., the Cheney Brothers, who have been engaged in the business for thirty years, employ 1,000 hands, and have the following capacity per annum: 60,000 pounds of thrown silk, 60,000 pounds of "patent spii," 100,000 pieces of belt ribbons, and 600,000 yards of wide goods, comprising dress silks, gros grains, poplins, foulards, and pongees. The Dole Manufacturing Company, which, in 1865, built at Paterson, N. J., a mill probably as large as any in Europe, having a mean length of 375 feet, and a height of four stories, turn out 3,000 pounds of manufactured threads per month, 1,000 gross of silk braids, 600 gross of hat bands, and 3,500 yards of serge, performing within the mill every oper ation necessary to produce the goods from the raw thread, and employing 300 hands, mostly children of Paterson machinists. John N. Sterns,

of New York, is making 400 yards of woven goods per day, and M. Givenaud over 300. Dexter, Lambert & Co., at Paterson, N. J., make 60,000 to 75,000 yards of dress trimmings per month, and during the past spring season, manufactured 12,000 dozen yards of bullion trimmings. Hamil & Booth's Passaic Mill, beside making trams and organzines, is employed in the manufacture of dress goods. Nearly all the Paterson mills are engaged in this specialty, the Dole Company having introduced a large number of improved American looms; and the Murray mill, which was burned in May, but will be rebuilt, will be employed in weaving broad goods of net warps and "spun" fillings. American dyers are succeeding in producing as fine shades of color as the French. Claude Greppo, at Paterson, with thirty-five dyers, some of them from France, is daily turning out 350 pounds of dyed silk, the colors of which are equal to any producd at Lyons or Saint Etienne. The American velvet mill started at Paterson a few years ago failed. New York City contains probably fifty establishments for various grades of the manufacture; many of them are small. At Schenectady, Troy, and Yonkers, are also several mills. Paterson is the headquarters of the trade and contains fifteen factories. The operatives are mostly children of mechanics, the majority of them girls, who earn from $4 to $7 per week. In the trimming and weaving mills, skilled operatives brought from Lyons receive as much as $35 a week for piece work during the spring season, and girls trained to the labor can earn $9 and $10 a week. Some of the mills in Connecticut and Hoboken employ operatives, as in Europe, to take the materials and weave the goods at home."

THE ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF SILK.

The annual production of raw silk is estimated at $214,000,000, or which America is credited with a mere trifle at present; but twenty years will probably make a great change. Eighty years ago the value of the silk goods manufactured annually in France was $5,000,000; now it is $150,000,000. The silk industry has not made so much progress in Germany, Spain, or Italy, yet it has also made great advances in those countries, and it promises to make great advances here.

This manufacture is so great and profitable, and is extending so rapidly, that the people of the United States should make their best efforts to get possession of a part of it.

SILK CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA.

The breeding of the silk-worm in California has been commenced so extensively, and so profitably, and there is so much probability of its rapid extension, that it is already regarded as one of the most promising industries and important resources of the State. It has thus become an interesting branch of our national agriculture, and a proper subject for study by those who desire to keep pace with the material progress of the country. It pays well, and carries with it many branches of manufactures which require costly machinery, high mechanical skill, and artistic labor, all of which will contribute to enrich the nation. The business is capable of great development. The market has never yet been overstocked, nor is it likely that it ever will be, so long as it is fashionable to wear the textile fabrics now in use. The best raw silk sells readily for its weight in silver, and France obtains seven times as much money from her cocooneries and silk factories as Mexico does from her mines.

INTRODUCTION INTO CALIFORNIA.

Among the pioneer settlers of California was Louis Prevost, an enthusiastic Frenchman, who had bred the silk-worm in his native country. Soon after establishing himself in the valley of Santa Clara, he became convinced that the climate and country were peculiarly adapted to the production of silk; so he imported mulberry seed, made a nursery, and set out some of the trees in a plantation, but had much difficulty in getting live eggs. He succeeded in interesting Henry Hentsch, a Swiss banker, in his schemes; and that gentleman, in 1857, imported a lot of eggs, all of which were dead, or were hatched on the voyage, and the worms died before reaching California. Another shipment the next year shared the same fate. In the third shipment a few eggs arrived in good order, and, in 1860, Mr. Prevost had the delight of seeing himself in possession of California coccons, which, in size, luster, color, and every desirable quality, were far superior to the average of the European cocoons. Although he had not given half so much time to the worms as is given in France, they were all very healthy, and he did not hesitate to advise all his friends to go into the silk business as a source of profit. Unfortunately, after having failed for several years in his attempts to get live eggs, he had dug up most of his mulberry trees, so that he was not prepared to feed many worms, and, besides, he had not enough money or the credit to justify him in devoting himself entirely to an occupation. which would not give him a return for several years. His progress was, therefore, slow. In the fall of 1860 he had 500 eggs; he began the year 1862, with 2,000; 1863, with 3,000; 1864, with about the same number, and 1865, with 100,000.

PRESENT CONDITION OF THIS ENTERPRISE IN CALIFORNIA.

Within the last three years the increase has been great, more than 3,000,000 worms having been bred in 1868. At the State fair, held at Sacramento in September last, twenty-eight persons exhibited cocoons, and the places represented were San José, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Hornitos, San Gabriel, Los Angeles, Nevada, Placerville, and Portland, Oregon. The cocoons were of several varieties, including the new French, old French, white Japanese, green Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, yellow Portuguese, white Portuguese, yellow Mountain, Valreas, white Oak, and wild California-varieties most of which are of no practical value, the old French being equal in the healthiness of the worms, and superior in the quantity and quality of the silk fiber, to any other. Among the exhibitors were J. N. Hoag, of Yolo County, three miles from Sacramento, who bred 1,000,000 worms, in 1868; W. M. Haynie, of Sacramento, who bred 800,000; Louis Prevost, of San José, who bred 500,000; G. E. Goux, and A. Packard, of Santa Barbara, 100,000 each; D. F. Hall, of San Gabriel, 200,000; and Mr. Garey, of Los Angeles, 20,000. The gentleman last named expects to feed 100,000 in 1869; and many others will double and treble their production. The main obstacle to progress, at present, is the scarcity of mulberry trees; but plants grow so rapidly in California that, when the entire agricultural population is satisfied that the breeding of the silk-worm will pay better than anything else, the production of cocoons can be raised to a very large figure in a few years. It is probable, from arrangements and preparations that are now being made, and from opinions expressed by silkgrowers, that the number of cocoons will double annually, for several