Farmers' Gazette, And Cheraw Advertiser

From the American Agriculturist.

AMERICAN INSTITUTE PREMIUM REPORTS.

We subjoin some extracts from the manuscript reports of the American Institute of this city, on the exhibitions of products of American art, from statements offered at their Annual Fair, October, 1841.

SILK. "It is a subject of regret that among the large number of silk growers who are now producing the raw material in considerable quantities, the competitors should be so few in number. They however, take great pleasure in stating that some very handsome and interesting specimens have been exhibited at the present fair, and indulge a hope that the number may be greatly increased in time to come, for there is no doubt but a much larger assortment could easily have been sent to the Fair from the different sections of our country where attention has been devoted to the producing the raw material and manufacturing it into sewings, hosiery, shawls, handkerchiefs, dress patterns, vestings, velvets, &c.&c, which your committee is informed is now done to considerable extent in the United States. 'The silk business seems to have obtained a footing here. It is satisfactorily ascertained that it can be conducted so as to afford females and children, who from their situation are incapable of performing hard labor, an easy, pleasant, and profitable employment.

One of the specimens offered for exhibition has afforded great satisfaction. It was produced by two ladies, who, at an actual expense of $100 15, have the past season produced a crop worth nearly $500. beside the state bounty, (30 cts. per lb.) which, it is understood, is sufficient to pay all the expenses of production, besides the interest on the investment of $1000 for land, trees and cocoonery. Some other fine specimens were also exhibited."

SILK MACHINE.--Dr. Thomas White, of Tennessee, received a premium for a silk machine of which the committee speak as follows.

"It is made to execute several distinct operations in the process of manufacture, at one and the same time, carrying forward the same from the cocoon to the well-formed threads fit for the loom or sewing purposes.

Its construction is of the most simple form and made of cheap materials. and can be furnished at a small expense to the user, by a class of mechanics found in great numbers in any part of the United States, and therefore conveniently open to the acquisition of all who may desire it. A system of reels is made to transfer the silk from one stage to another, avoiding the trouble of spooling or throwing, as well as the liability to break from tanglement of threads. By the simultaneous action of all the several parts and processes, the silk reeler will have produced an article of thread, instead of "reeled raw silk," in nearly the same time he would have produced the latter, had that process been the only one performed; the amount of power to propel the whole being so small as to offer no objection to its use by feeble persons.

Regarding this branch of American enterprise as one of the highest importance, your committee solicit for this machine the most profound attention, and recommend an award of the highest honor to be bestowed upon it, and beg leave to add in the present state of the art for which this machine is a branch. your committee regard that class of machines which are calculated to advance the raw material in the hands of the growers to the nearest stage of approach to completion for the consumer, best calculated to promote the early, profitable, and general embarkation of the people of the United States in the culture and manufacture of silk, and submit the following reasons as the foundation of their opinions," &c. &c.