whereof one female will lay a spoonfull suppose 500. lye unhatched but about nine dayes ours nine moneths When your Worms are hatched you may keep them either on the trees being assured that they will live on that kind of Tree whatsoever it be from whence you took your Bottoms and then you shall need onely to protect them from the Birds or else in some slight kind of housing Reedy arbors Indian mansions or what else you can devise there cheapest and speediest and then your onely labour and care is to give them leaves which you may either strip off or clip from off your Trees or if you will lop off little branches which may perhaps prove a good way for you for thereby the leaves will remain the longer fresh and give them to your Worms who for the labour of every Man and Boy thus inployed only in two moneths time will repay you with threeâ—core pounds worth of Silk Your own Experience Gentlemen will I hope ere this time twelv-moneth certifie you of the truth that is here set down unlesse you shall rather chuse to hugg your own poverty and make much of that slavery and drudgery you wear out your selves with in toyling about that contemptible beggarly Indian Weed TOBACCO The Copy of Esquire Diggs his Letter to his much honoured freind Iohn Ferrar Esquire at his house at little Gidding in Huntingtonshire From Virginia June 21. 1654. Sir I Have received your many and severall Letters printed papers and Quaeries and would my occasions have permitted I should ere this have given you that due thanks you deserve and punctually have answered all your judicious and pleasing Quaeries But I was so taken up in sending dayly for Mulberry-leaves as they are now so far scattered from my present Plantation that I could not possibly answer you expectations That onely difficulty made me to make but 400. pound weight of Silk-bottomes which I caused to be wound of 7. or 8. l. of Silke in a day Sir I doe very well approve of your last well printed Paper sent the Colony for making triall of the Naturall Silk-worme but such was my ill happe that I could not this spring meet with any of those Bottoms but shall this next Winter procure of them all I can Sir I am now confident I have conquered all the great feared difficulty of this rich commodity and made its sweet easy and speedy Profitt so evident to all the Virginians and that it doth not at all hinder their too much beloved Tobacco but that they may proceed with both together that now I doubt not nor they but that in a short time here will be great quantities made of Silke you in England will reape much advantage and gaine many waies by it more then most men can pet see and I by Gods blessing the comfort and joy in setting up so noble so beneficiall a staple vendible commodity My people differ very little from the rules set down in your Mr. Williams his Booke and as Esquire Samuell Hartlib hath also directed in his advertizement of Silk-worms unto us only in the hatching of the Worms-Eggs they are more curious of which I shall when I have more time give you a more particular accompt I made 10. l. of seed or Eggs this spring to give away to diverse Planters that are very earnest seeing so great a benefit before their eyes to become also Silk-masters you need not feare it but that this next spring there will be divers tryalls made of the hopefull Naturall Worms that you so highly prize and not without good cause and which is more perhaps they may fall one after another and be re-hatched that we may have a double Silk harvest â—n one summer as you have formerly hinted to us Pray Sir will you be pleased at this time to excuse my too much brevity in this great business of so much concernment of so much happiness to this Country and attribute it to my great hast and much business upon the ships sudden departure having many more dispatches to make to Freinds But in my next I shall make you double amends I pray present my service to the vertuous Lady Virginia Sir I daily pray for your long life and well-fare and now rest Sir your most humble Servant Edward Diggs A Way Experimented by Mr. Farrar to make the Gummy-hard Naturall Virginia Bottoms which hetherto by no art could be be prepared to unwind by reason of the Gummy hardness to unwinde with ease to the great advantage of the Planters of the Silk-trade in Virginia YOu must take Sope-boylers lye or liquor which is very sharp and strong and set that in a vessel over the fire till it be warme then put in as many of your hard gummy Bottoms as you please and let them rest in that liquor till it be scalding-hot and so remain half a quarter of an houre more or less till they be so dissolved that you may take out one and find it fit to unwind which you must thus doe First put the Bottoms into scalding clean water and having layen a while therein then take them out and proceed to unwind them as the custome is In case Sope-boylers lye or liquor be not to be had you may make a strong liquor of the Ashes of any Wood with boyling water the stronger the better and this may and will also perform the work And this is just as you make a lye to buck clothes withal Only note it must be very strong made An Extract out of a very Ingenious Gentlemans Letter from Dublin Concerning the Reformed Virginian Silk-worm I Thank you for your Virginian Paper Me thinkes the Experiment is most Natnral to my apprehensions that the Worms should feed and thrive best upon the leaves growing on the Trees rather then in the Houses and that they like other Caterpillers of whom these are a sort did at first breed so and that Houses were rather an Invention for expediency But their Proposition about Money to be carried to Virginia I utterly dislike even somuch as if it were possible I would banish Money from Ireland An Animadversion upon the Letter from Dublin I like not the Gentlemans Reason why he likes the Proposition concerning feeding of Silk-worms upon the Trees For almost all Plants even the most rare now in use were Originally namely since the deluge wild and past muster amongst Weeds are improved to such a degree of excellency to the eye nose or palat by industry and home-helps and contrivances So Iohn Tradeskin by Lambeth by the advantage of putting his Trees and other Plants into a warm house in winter or a stow nurses up those things faire and fragrant which would without that help either dye or be dwarft This is the reason why tame Pigeons or Conies are larger and breed better and oftner then wild Yet I conclude not against the thing it self for questionles that the leaves have more heart fresh and greene then halfe withered if the
you will be as good as youâ—â—ord a good Flint to give fire at the first stroke you will give some of us cause here to rejoyce in your light and I dare promise by the grace of God your sparkes will not fall in vain but will find good tinder at which many candles may be lighted in due time You see how large and free I am but your Ingenuity hath provoked me and I aime at nothing but what may be an advantage to the Publique and a matter of credit and due respect to be yeilded to your self by From my house neer Charing Crosse over against Angel Court the 17. November 1653. SIR Your ever faithfull and most willing Friend to serve you SAMUELL HARTLIB An Extract of Mr. Mewe's Answer to Mr. Hartlib's Letter Worthy Sir THe knocks and calls of two such unknown Friends as your self and Mr. Angelo coming with such choyce Books and so much candor exprest in too many and two friendly Letters were enough to make the sourest Hermite look out of his Cell especially if he spies the coasts clear without Swords and Pistols The truth is I am but one of many my fellow Shepherds that have taken Sanctuary in our Cotts ever since the Alarme was given us by the Anti-Pastoral Party and being likely to be stript to the Bag and Bottle you cannot blame us if we whistle away some of our sad and spare houres whilst Shepherds are smitten and Sheep scatter'd to observe Magnalia Dei in Minimis Melancholy loosers will rather play at small games than give over When I saw God make good his Threat Solvam Cingulae Regum and break the Reines of Government I observed that this pretty Bird whereof you write was true to that Government wherein God and Nature had set it to serve Hereupon my pleasure began to vie with my profit and I was willing for once to yeild the stakes to my pleasure Briefly Sir being sent for up amongst others of my Profession to serve the State I left a Model of this innocent Phancie in past-board which at my return by the care of my vertuous Wife now with God I found set up in the midst of my Garden in plain Free-stone In this I placed an upper and lower Hive over them a Trygonal Dial over that three Weather Glasses over that a Water-watch topt with a Weather-cock This placed in the stead of the Statue of labour which the Wind and Weather had brought from top to bottom so that it was obvious to my Phantasie to conceit this to be the Hyerogliphick of their Hyerarchy whose labour was lost in their Grandeiur and brought to that low price that any of their meanest quality might come up to it and be taken at his word though he bid never so meanly I considered that God gives us leave to make the most and best we can of those Relicks of his goodness whereof we have baffled away the better part as those Travellers that have benighted themselves by their frolick baitings make much of their diversified reflections of the Sun set in the Clouds and when they have almost lost his light make pass-time with his colours This will excuse me in case I fall short of that profit which you suspect I make that I begin and stand so long upon the pleasure and shall now take leave to surfet you with my Honey-sops before â—light you out with my Wax-tapers and then as you like this you may call again at my Hermitage Now what concernes the profit you tell me of a big word I should let fall of 300000 lib. per annum which our Nation might make of them if all of my ability would undertake to keep as many as my self one cipher mistaken may much alter the sum but grant it so as you have set it cast it thus I never kept twenty Stalls and usually take but half yet doe I value my Wax and Honey worth twenty Nobles at the least Now if he that is valued but as the tenth part of a Parish at most can make so much what may the rest what may the County what the Nation Whereas you say a place may be over stockt granting Mill-dewes I deny it Had we an hundred Hives for one where there are store of Oakes and Maples the place cannot be over stor'd with Bees So that if there were a Statute for Parish Bees as well as Parish Butts and Parochial Appiaries design'd for those places where observed best to thrive I know not why a Parish may not make as much Honey as one Gentleman of Norfolk viz. 300 li. de claro as I heard per annum As for your design of feeding them as that Gentleman in Italy I conceive it here unfeaseable or if it were it would not quit cost I care not to feed them except to save them in spring time and strengthen them for work Hearbs and Floures are but from hand to mouth serve for Bee-bread If Mill-dewes fall not Bees thrive not for they are with Gods blessing the Antidote to that Curse As for your honest pity to that poor Creature I shall try a Conclusion this Summer which may save some few Stalls but in saving poor Stalls we dammage them and in saving the rich our selves the middle sort are best for store and enough for those that are not covetous with whom they seldom thrive because they over act their part in sparing as carelesse persons in their neglect of keeping them I can and shall afford you what satisfaction you please in any useful question that concernes the welfare of their Common-wealth As for my transparent Hives I have but two which are not moveable else you should willingly have them whither you return'd them or not they serve onely to give me an account of the daily income and a diary of their Negotiations whereby if I spend half an hour after dinner or supper I know what hath been done that day can shew my Friends the Queens Cells and sometimes her person with her Retinue she afforded me 14. quarts or neer upon in one year and if the rest afford ten a piece I think it a fair gain there is not an Hive to be seen about my house nor a child stung in a year My Appiary consists of a row of little houses two stories high two foot apart which I find as cheap at seven yeares end as straw hacles and far more handsome where I have bay windowes I have a set of unseen Stalls whose room is handcomly spar'd and their company very harmonious especially for those that â—edge in their Chambers whether they would wake or sleep in so much as I have heard some say that have there lodged they would give twenty pound to have and here the like at home the pleasure takes some the profit others But if either take off and not take up our hearts in minding the main you and I may spare any farther enquiry about them Thus have I stept out of my way to gratifie
thoughts 1 This Silke so easie speedy and profitable a thing 2 The Silk-grasse naturally there growing which to the Indians the onely labour is of putting it up and bringing it to you at such a price a rich Commodity if known 3 The planting Vines small labour little cost long enduring 4 The multiplying of Cunny-warrens so easie a thing the wool of a skin now worth 8 pence which is more then the body yet the flesh is considerable meat the wooll is and will be very vendible for this new Inâ—ention not onely of these fine light hats now sold at 15 and 20 shil but the spining of the wool and making stockings of it as fine as those of silke 5 The increasing of abundance of Bees for wax and honey their food so plentifull in Virginia as in no Land more and if with an hatchet you do but slash your Pine-trees Firre-trees Locus and other trees there will store of liquor come out of them on which the Bee will gather infinite store of honey and wax as in Russia and other Countreys they do 6 The planting of Sugar-canes that being no more laborious then the Indian wheat setting it and once set in good Land they grow eight or ten years and the Indians pains will onely be to cut them yearly down and sell them to you 7 That of the Cotton-tree is the like for many years gathering of the cods of woll from them as we do Roses from the Rose-bushes 8 That of Ginger soon done the planting and the gathering of it 9 That of grafting your Crab-trees with Apples and Pears for Sider and Perry you knowing that a man in one day will graft an 100 stocks and they will grow night and day while you eat sleep and play and last 100 years to your great gain and profit I may not further inlarge my self for the present these are but tastes and hints for your better wits to worke on so with a thousand good wishes I bid you adiew Floreat VIRGINIA The fashion of the Botome The Silke Bottome of the naturall Worm in Virginia found there in the Woods is ten Inches about and six Inches in length to admiration whereas ours in Europe have their Sleave and loose Silke on the outside and then in a more closer covering they intombe themselves These rare Worms before they inclose themselves up fill with Silke the great emptinesse and afterwards inclose themselves in the middle of it so they have a double Bottom The loose Sleave Silk is all on the outside of this compass for if that were reckoned in the compasse of the Bottom would far exceed this proportion But this is sufficient to be the Wonder of the whole World to the Glory of the Creatour and Exaltation of VIRGINIA A Loving Advertisement to all the Ingenious Gentlemen-Planters in Virginia now upon the Designe of Silk By V. F. Gentlemen SVch hath bin the singular favour of Providence to you and the Lady that singe the publishing of this Book it hath so happily lighted into the hands of divers worthy persons being not only Gentlemen-Travellers of credit Merchants of reputation but likewise wonderfully taken with the love of Virginia and no less zealously affected to the advancement of the Silk-trade in that Land which they judge not of their experience and knowledge of what they have and observed in the Easterly parts of the World where abundance of Silk is made that no part of the World is more proper for Silk then Al-sufficient Virginia In regard of the excellency of the temper of the Climate which naturally produceth not onely Mulberries for food but the Silk-worme it selfe in that wonderful greatness of the wilde Silk-bottom which as they say The whole Vniverse affords not nor brings forth the like to their own small admiration And that there is no greater quantities of them found or seen they conclude it is in regard of the birds who are their natural enemies devoure most of them And these Gentlemen are confident that you did not know practise those ways and meanes for the feeding and preservation of them as in some far remote Regions is practised by those Nations that are expert Masters of Silk-wormes Virginia would instantly abound with great store of Silk and surpass all those Countreyes in that rich commodity and you all become with great speed and small cost or liâ—tle labour one of the happiest wealthiest people that the World affords And to the intent that such a blessing may not be longer wanting to you they have out of their superlative benigne affections and publike spirit imparted to the Lady these ensuing Relations with their earnest desires and advises that you all in Virginia may out of hand be made partakers of them And then knowing them you may no longer live in gross darknes and ignorance of so great a treasure that you are possessors of and may now have and enjoy the full use and benefit of which hitherunto hath most straingely been hidden from the eyes of body and mind They conceiving that the chief cause thereof hath been the pernicious smoak of Tobacco that thus hath dimmed and obscured your better intellectuals but when you begin to put these wayes means in practice they say you will blâ—sse your selves as they do that you have not in this long time discovered the infinite wealth and happiness that will arise unto you out of Silk But not longer to detain from you this most precious eye-salve for the speedy curing of your infirmity and making you all rich which is your main aime in that new world Hearken well to these Informations which the Lady earnestly desires may thus be with all speed made known to you all THe one Traveller declared That he passed a Countrey where he saw those people had their Silk-worms feeding on their Mulberry-trees in the fields there they live spun their Bottoms on the trees And to protect this noble profitable creature to defend it from the birds they used a most slight simple plain invention speedily effected of no cost or labour to them which was certain great sheets of Reeds or Canes that they hung over and about their trees tied to certain poles that incompassed them And in this easie manner they obtained great abundant quantities of silk to their wonderful inriching The sheets of Reeds were joyned together by a neede and thred running through each Reed at several equal distances and so drew them close and firm together This for you to imitate is in every respect to your wonderfull happiness Another of these Travellers saith That he passed a Countrey where the inhabitants did make large Tents or Boothes all of Reeds and Canes and in them placed shelves and tables made likewise of Reeds on which they fed their Worms strewing leaves on them These tents they set up round about their Mulberry-Groves and with much celerity and no cost A third Gentleman and Merchant that lived long in the
Coucheneal the rich Scarlet die but a Fly or the excrements of the Indian Fig-tree what is the new-found rich dying stuff of 25. l. a Tun but of a tree that is brought from the Island of Liberty neer Cape Florida where Captain Sailes plants And shall Virginia not yield a drop of good Liquour or Colour It cannot be if but a triall thus easie were made By burning of all kinde of Woods and Gums you 'le soon finde by your nose what sweet Perfumes they yield And by the ponderousness or weight of earths you may know if Minerals or not Let it be known also if you have not Waters of more than ordinary qualities for taste colours smell weight hotness or coldness there is much depends upon them And you shall know if they proceed out of any Minerals by taking a glass full and putting into it a Gall beaten to powder which will turn the water into a reddish colour and send samples of all kinde of strange earths and of all other kinde of things without fail And lastly if it be not too much presumption to beg the favour to receive that honour from you which she no wayes deserves nor can hope to requite To inform her what be the things the wayes the means to advance Virginia's Prosperity if they may be procured and effected If any errour be committed in telling you all this there is hope your pardon may be obtained seeing your onely good and benefit hath caused all this that hath been said and the zeal of your wealth and happiness hath drawn all to this length Sirs you have the faithful testimonies of those aforesaid worthy Gentlemen and nothing can be now wanting unto you but putting all in practice what they have declared and for your good are such invitations and incouragements unto you that more cannot be wished for There remains nothing but humble thanks to God and to these Gentlemen your due respects whom God hath made such Instruments for your happiness hoping their noble courteous examples will allure all other Gentlemen Travellers to cast into this good work some mites of their further knowledges and every man to contribute his prayers and help to this or any other hopefull designe seeing the consequence of them may be so good and great not only to the English Nation at home and abroad but to the poor Savages their welfare of souls and bodies which God grant An Other Advertisement THe Silk-Trade unlesse we will be deaf to Reason and Experience cannot be denyed the precedency of all Trades that are at this day a foot in either World And that in regard of its great and certain gain in so small a time A man and a Boy being able to tend as many Silk-worms in two Moneths space as will yeeld you sixty pounds which done they leave you ten Moneths free for any other imployment In regard of its small skill lesse pains care and labour no hazard no cost or charge more then a twelve-penny Reel no troublesome tools or Implements in regard of its incredible ease and pleasure as not requiring strength of Body of Wit of Purâ—e any stock to begin with only hands and eyes to gather leaves and feed the Worms with or protect them from the Birds if kept on the Trees their natural Mansion Admitting of all Ages for a Child can do all that belongs to it all Sexes all Qualities a most fit recreation for Ladies especially being begun and ended in the two pleasantest Moneths of the year March and April And all Callings too for if Saint Paul made Tents who can plead exemption from tending Silk-worms Again Silk is lesse chargeable in Ware-House Fraight c. then any other Commodity and yet none more durable lasting neat vendible nor more easely tranâ—portable for Fiâ—e hundred pounds worth of Silk fraights lesse and takes up lesse room then ten pounds worth of Tobacco Now where Worms and Food abound naturally and the Inhabitants are born with Brains the advancement of the Silk Trade must needs be proportionable upon which double score Virginia hath the advantage of any place in the yet discovered World I mean for Worms and Food which may be thus severally demonstrated Their Worms partly annually produced by heat and moysture as our Caterpillars and other Insects each Spring partly by Eggs which have escaped the Birds who are the greatest cause of their scarsity which otherwise would swarm over all the Land devouring them when they are Worms Eggs and Bottoms exceed ours not only in strength hardinesse and greatnesse being when Flyes as big as mens Thumbs but also in the largenesse of their Bottoms which are as big as Limons for Mr. William Wright of Nansamond found of them above seven inches round and one of them weighs more then a score of ours insomuch that whereas a Thousand of our Worms made but one pound of Silk worth at most here 30s a pound a thousand of their natural Worms will make ten pounds of Silk worth here twenty shillings the pound And certainly they need not object or be troubled at the somewhat more coursnesse of their Silk since they from the same number of Worms receive ten pounds in mony for our thirty shillings As for their Food the Virginia Worms feed not only on the Mulberry their sole food in all other parts of the World but also on the Crab Plum Poplar Oake Apple Cherry and Pohickerry-tree leaves with sundry other shrubs and busheÌ„s For proof whereof Mistresse Mary Ward sent over to her Couzen ten bottoms taken from Apple trees Esquire Ferrar her Kinsman likewise sent her ten more pulled off from Oaks and divers shrubs Mr Laurence Ward some taken from the Pohickerry tree Mr Wright from the Cherry tree So Dr. Russel and others The Objection or rather groundlesse surmise of the Worms being hurt by Thunder in Virginia is sufficiently cleared not only by the Natural Worms living so well and thriving there so admirably on the trees but also by trial made there this Spring of our Worms That ever to be honoured Noble Squire Diggs having at his very great charge sent for two Armenians out of Turky skilful men and made ten pound of Silk which had not want of Eggs hindred him would have been so many Thousand pounds Nothing then wants to make Virginia rival Peru for wealth more then to perswade the Planters to provide themselves this Winter to lose no more time of as many of the Natural Worms bottoms as possibly they can They will now be found in the Woods on the dis-leaved trees though most of them are spun by the Worms on the tree leaves which falling to the ground they perish with them and this is another great cause that so few bottoms are to be found The Bottoms thus gotten must be carefully kept in some long boxes till the Flyes come forth happily in February or March. For they remain in their bottoms 300. dayes ours but 20. so that their Eggs