This has been so often said and so clearly shown that I should consider it unnecessary to repeat it had not my attention been called to the fact that the success of several people and associations in the United States in raising cocoons has again made it a temptation to endeavor to reel silk, and during the past year I have received applications from people in different States for information as to the kind of silk reel employed here which would be most suitable for use by them. I am aware, also, that estimates have been made and published by some eminent authorities tending to show that this work could be done on a paying basis in some places in America. So far as I have seen them, however, these estimates are fatally defective in that they do not allow for differences in quality of silk reeled by competent or incompetent people, and under circumstances favorable or otherwise, but seem to assume that any silk reeled in our country would be a first rate article, and paid for accordingly. While this might be true in isolated cases, it could not be true in general, as with present appliances the art of reeling _good_ silk is only to be acquired and retained by years of apprenticeship and constant practice joined to a natural talent for the work. So true is this, that even in districts where the work has been largely carried on for many generations, quite a large proportion of women who try for years find it impossible to become good reelers. Now, there is a considerable difference in price between well reeled and poorly reeled silk--a difference so great that silk not well reeled in every way is not worth as much as the cocoons from which it is derived. It is, therefore, quite a hopeless task to reel silk unless the reeler is skilled. Even if it could be done to advantage--which I do not think it could--there exists in America no means of training reelers. In Europe they are taught by degrees in the filatures, working first at the easier stages of the operations, and afterward being helped forward under the eyes and guidance of experienced operatives. Another grave defect in the estimates alluded to is that all the profit is assumed to be paid to the reeler. This can evidently only be the case when each reeler runs her own reel, owns and cares for her own cocoons, sells her own silk, and furnishes her own capital. Now, even supposing that persons so fortunately placed as to be able to fulfill all these conditions should wish to engage in silk reeling, which is in the highest degree improbable, there exists an almost insuperable obstacle to the production of good silk except by an establishment large enough to use the cocoons of many producers. Nearly every silk crop as raised by the individual growers contains three or four grades of cocoons, and to produce good and uniform silk, these must be separated and each sort reeled by itself, producing several grades of silk.