Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe Part 29

On reviewing the causes which led to the suspension of this business, after so many exertions and such vast expense, which, it must be remembered, the profits of the culture never reimbursed, we find, first, the unfriendliness of the climate, which, notwithstanding its boasted excellence, interfered materially with its success. Governor Wright, frequently speaks of its deleterious influence, and the fluctuations in the various seasons, evidenced, to demonstration, that the interior was better adapted to the agricultural part of the business, than the exposed and variable sea-board. Mr. Habersham, in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, dated "Savannah, 24th of April, 1772," thus expresses himself on this point. "Upwards of twenty years ago, if my memory does not fail me, Samuel Lloyd, Esq., of London, who was one of the late trustees for establis.h.i.+ng this colony, and was fourteen years in Italy, and very largely concerned in the silk business, wrote to me, that the best silk was produced at a distance from the sea-coast, owing, I suppose, to the richness of the soil, which made the mulberry leaf more glutinous, nutritive and healthy to the silk-worm; also, to their not being obnoxious to musquetoes and sand-flies, and probably, likewise, to the weather being more equal and less liable to sudden transition from heat to cold: and on a conversation this day with Mr. Barnard, of Augusta, he a.s.sures me, that from two years experience in raising coc.o.o.ns there, he lost none from sickness, which frequently destroys two-thirds of the worms here;" and he further says, that Mr. Ottolenghe told him that the silk reeled from the Augusta coc.o.o.ns "made the strongest and most wiry thread of any raised in these parts."

Second, the expensiveness of living, and the dearness of labor, which was as high as 1_s_. 8_d_. to 2_s_. per day, whereas 2_d_. or 3_d_.

was the usual price paid the peasant in silk-growing countries.

Governor Wright, in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, frankly told him that, "till these provinces become more populous, and labor cheaper, I apprehend, silk will not be a commodity, or an article, of any considerable amount."

Third, the great reduction of the bounty, which, being the stimulus to exertion, ceased to operate as an incentive, when from 3_s_. 3_d_.

it fell to 1_s_. 3_d_., and finally to a mere premium on the general quant.i.ty imported. The poor could not subsist on these prices, and the rich could employ their lands to much better advantage than in cultivating an article which would not repay the expenses of labor: and lastly, the increasing attention, bestowed on rice and cotton, sealed the fate of the silk culture, and the planters soon learned to consider the latter of no importance in comparison, with the large and lucrative crops yielded by these more staple commodities. Other reasons might be mentioned, but these sufficiently account for its decline there, and its total neglect even to the present day. During the morus multicaulis epidemic, which spread over our country in 1838, Savannah, it is true, did not escape, and for a time the fever raged, with much violence, but the febrile action soon subsided, leaving no permanent benefit and only a few fields of waving foliage, as a deciduous memento of this frenzied excitement.

That silk can be produced in Georgia equal to any in the world, does not admit of a doubt, but whether it will ever be resumed, and when, is among the unknown events of the future.