SILK-WORMS AND SERICULTURE. 



6 73 



suddenly appears upon the outside of the body in the form of a white 

 powder. Each grain of this powder, falling upon a silk-worm, plants 

 the seed of this formidable mushroom, the ravages of which will 

 destroy all the worms of a rearing-chamber in a few hours. Happily, 

 science has found the means of killing these seeds, and of completely 

 disinfecting the locality. At the very moment when this victory was 

 announced, another yet more terrible scourge, the pbbrine, appeared. 

 The muscardine caused isolated disaster ; it had never been so wide- 

 spread as seriously to injure the general business. Not so this other 





Apparatus fob stifling the Chrysalis in the Cocoons. 



malady. It is a true epidemic, which attacks life at its very source in 

 an inexplicable fashion. It is a pestilence like the cholera. Under 

 the influence of this scourge, the chambers of the silk-worm no longer 

 thrive; most of the worms die without producing silk. Those that 

 survive as butterflies give infected eggs, and the next generation is 

 worse than the first. To get healthy eggs, we had to go to the neigh- 

 boring countries ; but other countries have been invaded in their turn. 

 To-day we have to get them in Japan. Even when the egg is healthy, 

 the epidemic bears equally on its product ; a great part of the worms 

 always succumb, and when the breeder gets half a crop he is very 

 happy. Upon the whole, the great majority of breeders have worked 

 at a loss since the invasion of this disease. 



You understand the consequences of such a state of things, con- 

 tinued since 1849. The people make nothing; they lose, and yet 

 vol. in. 43 



