TEA AND SILK FAEMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



183 



the Persians, and this conjecture is not weakened by the circum- 

 stance that the Chinese Emperor Kaung-Shee, in his treatise on 

 natural history, repudiates the appropriation of the honour by 

 his countrymen, although he and others claim for the Empress 

 Siling-Shi, wife of Hoang-Ti, who lived about 2700 years before 

 the Christian era, the reputation of having originated silk manu- 

 facture. The latter part of the new word under review needs 

 no explanation; and as space will be saved and exactitude 

 imparted to the writer's meaning whenever reference is made in 

 this essay to the combined industries of tea planting, growing, 

 and manipulation; mulberiy planting, cultivation, silkworm 

 hatching, rearing, and silk production as far as the cocoon, the 

 term chasericulture will be used. 



It is perhaps a little unfortunate that no official records of 

 thermal variations in China are available, so that it is impossible 

 to collect a series of averages for any lengthened period, and 

 such figures as are met with only refer to epochs of two or three 

 years, and are only locally applicable. By personal observation, 

 however, and comparison with the notes of previous and later 

 residents, we offer the following table as a fairly accurate register 

 of the monthly temperature at Shanghai : — 



This port, liowever, being only twelve miles from the sea, greater 

 variations of temperature than tliose appearing in this diagram 

 may be expected to occur in the more inland districts of the 

 Upper Yangtsse, and on or near the shores of the Talio, Poyang, 

 and Tungting Lakes. Accordingly a margin of temperature 

 must be allowed, and some travellers consider that about 5° of 

 Fahrenheit, judiciously added or deducted, ought to exhibit a 

 fairly useful approximation to the actual average temperature 



