[1][2] The association was established in November 1869 in Los Angeles, but after the death of its president and only expert in sericulture, Frenchman Louis Provost, in 1870, the silk-growing scheme was abandoned.
[1] To encourage silk culture in California, the Legislature, in 1865–1866[3] (another source states 1867), passed an act giving a bounty of $250 for every plantation of 5,000 mulberry trees two years old, and one of $300 for every 100,000 merchantable cocoons produced.
Mulberry plantations multiplied until the bounties paid threatened the state treasury with bankruptcy;[4] in 1867[3] or 1868, the law was repealed.
[5] Out of the hundreds of thousands of bounty-bought cocoons, only one piece of silk was known to be manufactured, and that was a flag for the State Capitol.
Counting bounties paid and labor lost on a non-producing industry, indirectly that flag cost the people of the commonwealth not less than US$250,000.
A writer in the Overland Monthly of 1869 noted: "It is almost startling to think that from a calling so apparently insignificant we may be able to realize in a short time a larger sum and infinitely greater gains than from one-half of all our other agricultural productions in the State."
[4] The Silk Center Association sold its land holding to Judge John W. North's Riverside Colony.