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 him that, “till these provinces become more populous, and labor cheaper, I apprehend, silk will not be a commodity, or an article, of any considerable amount.”

Third, the great reduction of the bounty, which, being the stimulus to exertion, ceased to operate as an incentive, when from 3_s_. 3_d_. it fell to 1_s_. 3_d_., and finally to a mere premium on the general quantity imported.  The poor could not subsist on these prices, and the rich could employ their lands to much better advantage than in cultivating an article which would not repay the expenses of labor: