gislature, "that every proprietor of land within the colony of
Virginia shall, for every hundred acres of land holden in fee, plant upon
the said land ten mulberry-trees at twelve feet distance from each other,
and secure them by weeding and a sufficient fence from cattle and horses."

Tobacco fines, as usual, were enacted in case the planting and weeding
were not duly performed according to the statute; and further:

There shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for
every pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of
tobacco, to be raised in the public levy, and paid in the
county or counties where they dwell that make it.

This act was passed in 1662, and probably continued in force for a long
time; but Virginia did not therefore become a silk-growing country, nor
has it yet, though many parts are well adapted to raise this commodity.
People, we presume, have hitherto found other things more profitable.

The following enactment is a mixture of the barbarous and the ludicrous:

Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their
neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved
in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great
damages; be it therefore enacted, That in actions of
slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for
the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if
the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater
damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman
to suffer ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco
adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the
tobacco.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TROUBLE-SEEKING.

Adversity Has So Many Pleasant Uses That Most of the World's Inhabitants
Appear to be Unable to Wait Until It Comes to Them.

A very large proportion of the inhabitants of earth appear to take no
stock in that cheerful assurance, given in the Book of Job, that "Man is
born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." They believe that man cannot
have trouble unless he looks for it.

"Seek and ye shall find" is their motto, and they seek trouble because
they are philosophers. Apparently Shakespeare was of their ilk, for he
said:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running bro