have books containing what they needed.  But these authors made the business much more difficult and expensive than it should be.  First of all, they laid it down as one of the Medes and Persian laws of sericulture, that the worms must have mulberry leaves to subsist upon.  Mulberry sprouts are costly to begin with; then the trees must grow at least two years, and should grow five years, before the leaves are used.  This, of itself, was enough to deter but a very few from silk culture.  But they made it appear, also, that very expensive appliances for a cocoonery were necessary, and only the most costly breeds of worms should be used, entailing greater expense and difficulty.  The books were, and for that matter are, filled with dry scientific details of the internal construction of the worm and of its habits—­details which only confused the learner and which, though giving an author material from which to deduce rules of instruction, should have been omitted from the book and their place supplied with the rules deduced.  In short, it seemed to be the prime object to make sericulture as hard and forbidding as possible, and to deter the people from it rather than to induce them to engage in the work.  For this very reason there has been considerable popular indifference to it, and from the agricultural press it has not received that attention which so promising an industry deserves.  I would not be so unjust as to leave the reader to infer that all authors on sericulture have been thus guilty.  There have been some very few who from the very start have presented it in as easy and practicable a light as was consistent with successful work.  Nor would I be ready to assert that those who have said it could not be made financially profitable without mulberry groves, fancy priced worms, and expensive appliances, have done so from base motives.  Yet it would appear as if not a few could be justly indicted of this; for they have mulberry sprouts, fancy priced worms, and costly appliances to sell.  And perhaps it occurred to them that if they deterred the people generally from taking hold of it, they would have less opposition and competition.

But be this as it may, the fact is that it is not necessary to have mulberry groves, costly appliances, or even fancy priced worms (though good worms only should be reared), in order to profitably engage in sericulture.  I know of no business presenting so promising an opening that requires less capital.  And I say this, having no axe to grind in any way, simply for the sake of those girls and women who might make money by it, and who would do so if they only knew the facts.  I have no book, no sprouts, no worms, nothing whatever, to sell.