As early as 1609, the subject engaged the attention of the adventurers to Virginia, and in a pamphlet, called “Nova Brittannia offering most excellent fruites by planting in Virginia,” published that year, the writer says “there are silkeworms, and plenty of mulberie-trees, whereby ladies, gentlewomen and little children (being set in the way to do it) may bee all imploied with pleasure, making silke comparable to that of Persia, Turkey, or any other.”  In 1650, Mr. Samuel Hartlib published a work entitled “Virginia Discovery of Silk Wormes, with their Benefits,” in which he endeavored to show that the raising of silk was a thing very practicable in Virginia, and even asserted that as a staple, it might be made superior to tobacco, in which opinion he was confirmed by the judgment of several others.  That they made some advances in this culture, is evident from the fact that the Coronation robe of Charles II., in 1660, was made of silk reeled in that colony, and even so late as 1730, three hundred pounds of the raw material were exported from Virginia.  Tobacco, however, soon assumed and maintained the ascendancy, to the exclusion of this more useful and beautiful produce.

In 1703, Sir Nathaniel Johnson introduced the silk culture into South Carolina, but the astonishing success which rewarded the casual introduction of rice into the plantation about eight years before, precluded a just interest in the undertaking, and as a public and recognized commodity it soon came to naught, though several persons, more for amusement than profit, still gave their attention to it; and as late as 1755, Mrs. Pinckney, the same lady to whom the province was indebted for the first cultivation of indigo ten years before, reeled sufficient silk in the vicinity of Charleston to make three dresses, one of which was presented to the Princess Dowager of Wales, another to Lord Chesterfield, and the third, says Ramsay, who narrates the circumstance, “is now (1809) in Charleston in the possession of her daughter, Mrs. Horrey, and is remarkable for its beauty, firmness and strength.”

But notwithstanding these failures and the known difficulty of introducing a new branch of agriculture into a country, as was evidenced by the compulsion which was necessary by Henry IV. to introduce it into France, against the united voices of the merchants-traders, and even in opposition to the Duke of Sully, and also the indifference manifested in England, notwithstanding the able proclamation of King James on the subject, commanding its cultivation; the Trustees for the settlement of Georgia determined to make one more effort, which, if successful, would enrich both the province and the mother country.  The views which they entertained, however, of making Georgia supplant every silk-growing country, were extravagant and erroneous; they expected, in fact, to supply all Europe, and to produce an article of equal strength, beauty and value, with any made on the Continent.  The Piedmontese, thought they,