be of essential benefit to the public. Other nations have thought so before we began our career, and have long since reaped the fruit of it; we have but just begun, yet our activity bids fair, being begun, to come up with the foremost, it wants but perseverance under such difficulties as ever accompany beginnings, to render our com- . mon endeavours as useful as we could with.

r

I observe by the correspondence you have favoured me with, and the samples you have sent me, for both of which I am much obliged to you, that you have transferred for the present, your attention from the culture of cochineal to the cultivation of silk.-Both are of infinite importance; and I hope that whatever obstacles may for the present deter you from the pursuit of the culture of cochineal, which is of infinite national importance, the cost of it being from 16 to 20 fhillings per pound, yet that nothing will wholly alienate you from the pursuit of it. I have The laboured with zeal at it, and great hopes I had. cactus cochinilefer grows in plenty at St. Vincents, but I am much damped in my hopes by an alarming report of Mr Anderson, the superintendant, on whose exertions and knowledge every thing depended, being dead, and anThe culture of silk is xiously wait for further accounts.

also valuable, and as you seem by the printed correspondence to labour under some difficulties how to increase the growth of the mulberry, which is the food of the silk worm, in proportion to the rapid increase of the insect, which the climate seems favourable to, I flatter myself you will excuse the liberty I take of suggesting such hints as occur to me, and seem likely to be of service. I shall begin with observing what seems to have occurred to you already, that the mulberry is certainly a moist watery plant; it requires moisture even in Engiand, to make it thrive; and it is constantly planted for that reason near VOL. Xviii.

E

Nov. 6 ponds or running waters, It must require this an hundred times more in India; and this is the first thing to be attended to. Give me leave now to suggest one or two other things.

It is a fact proved by experience that there is a difference in silk worms, and much depends on the breed, something on their being kept clean and healthy, and still more on their food: the leaves of old mulberry trees will feed them, but will not produce good silk. It is the young shoots of young trees, the fresh leaves before they are dried up, and rendered hard and dry by the sun, which is the best food for silk worms: to increase these fhould be a great object. I have been afsured from good authority (for I never was an eye witness of it) that in the south of France, the practice with a view to this object, used to be as follows; and it seems to be a practice that rationally promises a good effect. Take the ripe berries of the mulberry when it is full of juice and of seeds. Next take a rough horsehair line or rope, such as we dry linen on in England, and with a good handful of ripe mulberries run your hand along the line, bruising the berries and mashing them as much as possible as your hand runs along, so that the pulp and seeds of the berries may adhere in great abundance to the rope or hair lineNext dig a trench in the ground where you wish to plant them, much like what is practised in kitchen gardens in England for crops of various kinds.Next cut the rope or hair line into lengths according to the length of the trench you think fit to make, and plunge the line full of mashed berries into the trench, and then cover it over well with earth, always remembering afterwards to water it well, which is efsential to the succefs. The seeds of the berries thus sown will grow, and soon fhoot

*This ought to have been a straw rope.

Edit.

out young suckers, which will bear young leaves, which are the best food for the silk worm.

The facility and rapidity with which young leaves may by this means be produced, is evident; for as many rows of trenches may thus be filled as can be wished-and it can never be necessary to have mulberry trees higher than our raspberries, currants, or gooseberry bushes, in our gardens in England. Whenever they get beyond that, they lose their value, and if these trenches succeed you may have a supply coming fresh up day after day, or any quantity you please; especially in the genial warmth of an Indian climate.

If any thing I have here suggested proves of the least service to any object of your pursuits, it will give me great pleasure. I have only to lament that the pursuit of those great objects is now only in its infancy, which ought to be brought to maturity, and to have attained its object long ago. I am Sir, your, &c.

War office Dec. 8. 1791.

GEORGE YONGE

Dr Anderson to the Right honourable Sir George Yonge. Bart, K. B. &c. &c.

SIR

On the arrival of the ship Nottingham, I received your favour of December 8th, and am happy to find that I have anticipated your wishes in the care of Nopal plants for the culture of such cochineal insects as the gentlemen on your side of the water may think proper to send here from America. You will see by the inclosed journal of correspondence till the 17 of april last, that although I have thought proper to issue plants of them to every station on the coast, with a view chiefly to contri

Nov. 6. bute subsistence to the poor in times of scarcity, yet I have no doubt that the company will continue to keep up the Nopalry at this place, in order to receive the first cochineal insects that may be sent.

I observe with pleasure the attention you have shewn to the multiplication of mulberry plants, and will immediately communicate the distinct method you propose of rearing them from seed, to the gentlemen in charge of mulberry plantations, which will likewise gratify them very much.

It must be understood however that the mulberry is not drenched with water without injury; as cuttings thrive only in mould that is moistened with little watering; for with full watering frequently repeated, the bark rotts, especially if the soil is clay; but cuttings planted here at the distance of six feet from one another, and raised with care, cover the ground in six months so completely that no other plant or weed can live amongst them.

Some fields of this description in my garden, that in the last monsoon were by the low situation of the ground flooded for six weeks, lost all their leaves, but on the ap proach of spring every branch of them was entirely cove red with fruit.This disposition to fruit might be imputed to the affection of the plant for water, was it not likewise known that stripping a fruit tree of its leaves is the practice of this country to dispose it to bear fruit, as pruning is the practice of Europe.--The country people take the top of the branch in one hand, and run the other hand from that point down towards the stock, so as entirely to strip off the leaves. --After the mulberry is six months old, and has struck its roots deep into the earth, it will live and become a tree twenty feet in height in the course of as many months, without any further wate

ring from art; but if you expect a constant and full crop of tender leaves, it must be lopped every year, and watered at least every twenty days in the dry season.

I have the pleasure to inclose a small fkain of the silk my garden produces, and at the same time to afsure you that nothing will alienate me from the pursuit of so important an object as the cochineal, while I am favoured with the correspondence and approbation of those whose distinguished character and abilities merit every attention. I am, with much consideration, Sir, your, &c.

Madras. May 27th, 1792.

JAMES ANDERSON.

P. S. This climate is so favourable to the mulberry, that cuttings throw out flowers with the first leaf buds, and produce ripe fruit within three months after they are planted.

AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY.

Vinegar concentrated and chrystalised, communicated by

SIR,

Arcticus.

To the Editor of the Bee.

another discovery lately

I hinted to you in my last made here by the ingenious chymist Mr Lovitz, who presented us last year with the astonishing phenomenon of mercury frozen in masses of ten or twelve pounds, in a warm room, by means of a mixture of snow, and his chrystalised caustic vegetable alkali.

The new discovery is a salt of vinegar; the first time the vinous acid has been seen in that form per se, although the citric, aud acetosellic, have been both chrystalised before.

*This is not yet arrived.

Edit.