202 TEA AKD SILK FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



can be obtained from 16 lbs. of fresh, or 5 lbs. of dried cocoons. 

 Eussian silkwinders with tbeir machinery have got 1 lb. of silk 

 from 14J lbs. of fresh, or 3'9 lbs. of dried cocoons. In Europe 

 12 lbs. of fresh, or 4 lbs. of dried cocoons will yield 1 lb. of silk. 

 Apparently, then, such cocoons part with about two-thirds of 

 their original weight when desiccated, so that the 108 lbs. reared 

 by the family just mentioned would shrink in drying to 36 lbs., 

 and out of this quantity probably about 9 lbs. would be the 

 ordinary marketable silk of commerce, worth in London from 

 20s. to 25s., or even more, per lb., and costing about 5s. OJd. 

 per lb. to produce, or 4d. per lb, less if the peasant happens to 

 own a mulberry garden. Keeping out of view the intermediate- 

 gains on this transaction, which cannot fall short of from 10s. 

 to 13s. per lb., the peasant proprietor and producer gets 6-|d. 

 per lb. of profit out of his little venture spread over a period of 

 only a few weeks. This, it need scarcely be said, is a sum which, 

 if the outcome of tea, would gladden the heart of many an Indian 

 planter, and it would seem a return to the happy olden days to 

 not a few of our merchant princes, the complexions of whose tea 

 speculations in China of late years may not have been altogether 

 rosy. 



Having thus seen what the uneducated peasant of Turkestan 

 can achieve, the reader will have no difficulty in crediting the 

 general results of the " Victorian Ladies' Sericicultural Com- 

 pany" in Australia, alluded to in a former part of this essay. 

 The founder and mainspring of this spirited association was 

 Mrs. Bladen ISTeill of the Murray Eiver mulberry plantations 

 After commencing her own nurseries and experiencing the 

 annoyances caused by the various forms of silkworm disease as 

 perpetuated by dependence upon Asiatic and European grain, 

 she visited the principal silk districts of France and Italy in 

 search of healthy eggs. Exercising the utmost patience, sur- 

 mounting many obstacles, and cheerfully submitting to con- 

 siderable expense, Mrs. Neill at length procured a supply of 

 robust eggs in Switzerland from renovated breeds reared on the 

 confines of perpetual snow, and wholly free from disease. These 

 were conveyed to the Antipodes packed in ice, and from this 

 importation the Australian magnaneries of the period were 

 stocked, with the happy and encouraging result that amongst 

 the first samples of silk produced some were valued in London 

 at 40s. per lb. This energetic lady, along with some others, 

 afterwards founded, and we believe still conducts, the company 

 in question, whose cost of production, at an early period, by a 

 simple calculation from the data on page 192, will be found to 

 be about 8s. 8d. per lb. 



It woald be easy to multiply illustrations of the cost of pro- 

 ducing silk in Italy and France which would undoubtedly show 



