uction by fire, on the afternoon
of March 25, 1839.

Thus ended the grand project for raising silk in the Province of
Georgia; for though some few individuals, together with the people of
Ebenezer, continued to raise small quantities, yet, as a branch of
general culture, it has never been resuscitated. The last parcel
brought to Savannah was in 1790, when over two hundred pounds were
purchased for exportation, at from 8_s_. to 26_s_. per pound.

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 establishing 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 assures me,
that from two years experience in raising cocoons 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 cocoons "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 hi