title-page of the pamphlet that "the Indians, seeing and finding that there is neither Art, Pains, or Skill in the thing," will "incontinently fall to raising silk." Not only were the gentle savages, and especially their women and children, to devote themselves to silk, but the American caterpillar--"the natural silkworm" as it was called--was expected to spin for the market if his cocoon could be "refined." [Sidenote: Hening ii, 242.] [Sidenote: Phil. Trans. XI, 628.] By 1666 the silk delusion had passed, and the Virginia Assembly repealed all acts for the encouragement of mulberry trees. Ten years later, Glover, the botanist, found many of these trees still standing as melancholy witnesses to the waste of energy by the earlier promoters and settlers of the colony. Almost every other American colony made the same experiment for itself, and Virginia renewed its endeavors from time to time, each generation forgetting what its fathers had learned. III. [Sidenote: Silk-grass.] [Sidenote: 1585.] [Sidenote: A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.] [Sidenote: Proceedings of Va. Assembly, 1619. 2d N. Y. Hist. Society Coll. iii, 348.] [Sidenote: Purchas IV, p. 1777.] [Sidenote: Instr. of 24 July, 1624. MS. Bk. of Instr. Libr. of Cong.] Along with the silk fever went the silk-grass craze. Ralegh's people had seen the Indians wearing garments woven of the fiber of the _Yucca filamentosa_, the "Adam's needle and thread" of our popular speech. Hariot, in his account of it, declares that "the like grows in Persia," and that much of the "silk-works" coming thence to Europe was made of this fiber. He probably confounded the yucca with the ramie plant of the East, of which grass cloth is made. Of the yucca fiber taken to England in 1585, "a piece of silk grogram" was made, and of course pronounced "excellent good"; it was even presented to the queen. The coarse and rather brittle fiber of this plant was exalted by enthusiasts into something nearly equal to silk. Ordinances for planting it were sent from England; at least one legislative act in its favor was passed by the Virginia Assembly, and the most foolish hopes were entertained regarding the profit to be had from it. By 1619 it had come to be called "silk flax," and it was then advocated for homelier uses, such as cordage and linen, and every householder was compelled by law to set a hundred plants; the governor himself set five thousand. In 1624 it is spoken of as "a commoditie of speciall hope and much use." There were by this time those who ventured to say that the silk-grass enterprise was "full of difficultie"; but the managers in England easily got rid of this objection by attributing the difficulty to "negligence and want of experience." They were just then intent on finding some commodity that would take the place of tobacco, which was frowned upon by both court and Parliament. In spite of all discouragement, the hope of good results from the yucca fiber