218 TEA AND SILK FAEMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



fastened around and across the trays in which the worms have 

 had their last meal. Some silk farmers provide square shallow 

 boxes partitioned off into little spaces like a draft-board ; others 

 use short bundles of straw tied round the middle and well spread 

 out at the two ends ; whilst many are content to supply only 

 small bunches of beech twigs with the withered leaves still ad- 

 hering. This seems to be more a matter of convenience to the 

 sericiculturist than importance to the silkworm, as it usually com- 

 mences to spin immediately it finds some suitable support for 

 the first few threads it emits. It happens occasionally that indi- 

 viduals, even after having selected a nook, return again to the tray 

 for more food. This should be at once supplied, as it is well known 

 that the more heartily they have eaten within certain limits 

 of time, the better and more profuse will be their yield of silk. 

 On this point an ancient Chinese writer says : — " The reason why 

 they (the farmers) take so much pains to make these little insects 

 eat so much and so often, is to forward their growth and make 

 them spin the sooner, the great profit which they expect from 

 these creatures depends upon this care. If they come to their 

 full growth in twenty-three to twenty-five days, a hurdle covered 

 with worms whose weight at first was a mass (that is little more 

 than a drachm), will produce 25 ounces of sUk, whereas, if for 

 want of proper care and nourishment, they do not come to per- 

 fection in less than twenty-eight days, they will produce but 20 

 ounces ; and if they are a month or forty days in growing they 

 will yield only about 10 ounces." It is indeed considered a fair 

 test of what is termed " a proper education," that the worms 

 hatched from 1 ounce of eggs should at this period have 

 finished at least 1500 lbs. of fresh mulberry leaves. About the 

 thirty-second day the cocoon and the sixth period of the silk- 

 worm's career are begun, the former being usually completed in 

 four days, when the caterpillar, under the protection and privacy 

 of its elastic armour, becomes a chrysalis. Four days more are 

 generally allowed, when the cocoons are removed ; and if the 

 education has been successful, the worms have proved healthy, 

 and all have survived, the harvest should be about 120 lbs. of 

 cocoons for each ounce of eggs hatched. Probably in no other 

 instance in nature could such experiments as the foregoing be so 

 accurately and satisfactorily conducted, and the result arrived at 

 with such exactness and precision. 



It is the main objection to sericiculture, in the minds of tender- 

 hearted or sentimental persons, equally with the Buddhists of 

 China and some sects in India, that so much sacrifice of insect 

 life is involved, as, except the cocoons kept for reproduction, all 

 the others are usually subjected to a decree of heat w^hich stifles 

 the chrysalis within. Were it possible to unwind the whole of 

 the cocoons before the little hermits had had time to perforate 



