THE HISTORY OF SILK CULTURE. 3 



practised in China from a very remote antiquity, and that the 

 greatest possible encouragements have been given to the art by 

 the successive sovereigns, and that a vast number of laws and 

 regulations were enacted with a view to the advancement and 

 protection of the industry. 



The empresses, in particular, in commemoration of the ines- 

 timable discovery of their ancestress, took the rearing of silkworms 

 under their own special patronage, to which end there was an 

 enclosure attached to the palace for the cultivation of mulberry 

 trees, and just as the emperor showed his desire for the advance- 

 ment of agriculture by going in state each year to turn the first 

 clods with the plough, so his wife, surrounded by the ladies of the 

 court, went annually in state into the royal mulberry garden to 

 pluck with her own hands the leaves of three branches which the 

 ladies-in-waiting lowered till they were within reach, and thus she 

 inaugurated the silkworm season. 



A somewhat different account is, however, given in one Chinese 

 work of great antiquity, which seems to imply that the emperors 

 also took an active interest in the occupation, their wives appear- 

 ing in a more subordinate capacity. We read that, in ancient 

 times, the emperor and his princes had a public mulberry garden, 

 and a silkworm establishment erected near some river. " On the 

 first day of the third month of spring," the sovereign, who evi- 

 dently meant business, came out dressed in " a leather cap and 

 plain garments," and, apparently finding some difficulty in 

 deciding otherwise, ascertained by lot which was the chief of his 

 three queens ; the selection having been made, the fortunate lady 

 was told off, together with the most honourable of the other 

 members of his harem, to attend to the rearing of silkworms in 

 the above-mentioned establishment. These then, having received 

 their commission, brought the eggs and washed them in the 

 river that ran close by, after which they picked the mulberry 

 leaves, aired and dried them, apparently by placing them in 

 their bosoms, and proceeded to feed the worms. At the close of 

 the season a special ceremony, though of an exceedingly simple 

 character, was gone through. The ladies brought the cocoons to 

 their prince, and he presented them again to his chief queen ; 

 whereupon she said, " This is the material of which your high- 

 ness's robes are to be formed." Having said this, she covered 

 herself with her robe, and received the cocoons. The ladies of 

 the court, on such occasions, received presents of sheep, 

 apparently in order to reward them for their zeal in silkworm 

 culture, and to serve as an inducement to them to undertake the 

 like duties the next season. 



