INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, PFSA, FOR 1909-10. 35 



itself, as centres for buying cocoons develop naturally and 

 as the rearers take to making cloth. It is evident that the 

 larger land-owners must take it up first and that the small 

 cultivators cannot do so without some organisation to 

 dispose of their products. It is also necessary at first to 

 be in touch with Pusa or some other centre that can advise 

 and help. The industry is most extensive at present in 

 Tirhoot, Bhagalpur and Patna, the three divisions nearest 

 to Pusa but is being tried also in Malabar, Dharwar, West 

 Coast, Gujarat, Kathiawar, Sind, Patiala, Rohilkhand, 

 Betul, Chanda and Murshidabad. The Salvation Army 

 has also taken it up at Bangalore and elsewhere. Enquir- 

 ies were made from silk spinning firms in England.. France, 

 Switzerland and Japan as to the value of Eri silk cocoons 

 for industrial use there; one Indian silk spinning mill is 

 spinning Eri silk yarn of fine counts, which is being used 

 for weaving in India; but until there is some organisation 

 for collecting and selling large quantities of cocoons, the 

 industrial uses of this material cannot be developed. In 

 this question, we have had the assistance of Mr. Drieberg 

 of the Ceylon Agricultural Society, who is interested in 

 the same problem. Trials are being made at Pusa with 

 hybrids between Attacus ricini, the Eri, and Attacus 

 cynithia>, the wild form ; these are not encouraging but may 

 yield a more robust race. The disease of Eri worms which 

 is occasionally a serious and inexplicable factor, is being 

 investigated in collaboration with the Imperial Agricul- 

 tural Bacteriologist and trials are being made of the various 

 varieties of castor for feeding the worms. 



Mulberry silk cultivation was continued mainly to 

 determine how far it can be profitably taken up either to 

 provide raw silk, or to supply cocoons. All available varie- 

 ties have been collected at Pusa for hybridising. The 

 rearing of the best Italian and French varieties has been 

 very successful; the rearing of the ordinary Bengal 

 varieties has shown that they are not worth cultivating in 

 Behar, and the cultivation of a hybrid between the Euro- 

 pean univoltine worms and the Bengal multivoltine is 



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