216 TEA AND SILK FAEMIXG IN NEW ZEALAND. 



Something about Silh. 



Probably the best illustration of what the indoor department of 

 sericiculture is will be seen by following the progress of a single 

 brood of silkworms from the egg to the finished cocoon. Having 

 procured healthy seed from some district untouched, or little 

 molested with disease, the first object is to time the incubation 

 with the first bursting of the mulberry into leaf. iSTot many 

 years ago there were difficulties in the way of this, as the little 

 worms usually appeared at the accustomed season, unless it hap- 

 pened to be uncommonly inclement, whether there was food for 

 them or not. If the hatching occurred too soon ere the mulberry 

 buds had appeared, the brood perished from famine ; if too late, 

 when the leaves had become somewhat tough and leathery, it 

 either died of indigestion or struggled through a short term of 

 life, only to collapse before spinning, or to produce a limited and 

 inferior return in silk. This we believe to have been the main 

 reason why sericiculture on a commercial scale has been so long 

 in taking root in inviting spots in the British Islands ; the worm 

 generally appears before its food is ready, whereas in China and 

 other parts of the world, their advent is simultaneous. Various 

 devices have been resorted to in order to solve the enigma, such 

 as storing for food in a dried and powdered condition, some of 

 the youngest mulberry leaves of the previous season ; keeping 

 the eggs in bottles under w^ater so as to maintain them at a uni- 

 formly low temperature, &c. ; but the refrigerating method now 

 in vogue in Italy and France, and at present practised with 

 success by Captain Mason, of Yately, Farnborough, Hampshire, 

 seems to have at length provided the means of rendering sericicul- 

 culture not only possible, but perhaps remunerative wherever the 

 mulberry can be coaxed to grow in the open air. By this means, 

 through the agency of ice, the vivifying of the silkworm's eggs can 

 be retarded for long periods without in the least impairing their 

 vitality, so that they may be sent to the most distant regions of 

 the world in safety, or kept in an ordinary refrigerator during 

 backward seasons, until the mulberry has commenced to bud. 

 That no evil efi'ect follows such an apparently unnatural expedi- 

 ent, was proved a few years ago by this gentleman upon a scale 

 of some magnitude. He found that the worms hatched from 5 

 ounces of eggs, previously removed from an ice chest w^here they 

 had been deposited during the progress of his hay harvest, not 

 only developed rapidly, but in the fourth period of their exist- 

 ence, managed to devour 6155 lbs. of mulberry leaves in the 

 course of a fortnight. So satisfied indeed are some of the Conti- 

 nental sericiculturists of the value of this retarding expedient, that 

 in many places great central refrigerating establishments, capable 

 of dealing with 50,000 ounces of eggs, have been erected. 



