116 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



when they would otherwise be completely dry, and although 

 in the case of silkworm rearing the use of possibly more 

 certain antiseptic methods is not generally prohibited by 

 considerations of cost, in many other instances, such as 

 occur in connection with agricultural operations, this 

 principle might be worked out and applied where water, 

 either natural or artificial, is available. Irrigation, for 

 instance, might be utilized at the proper time to ensure 

 premature germination of parasitic soil organisms, such as 

 bacteria and fungi in the resting spore stage, or even to 

 induce such unseasonable multiplication of the vegetative 

 forms as to result in their exhaustion or auto-intoxication. 

 This principle is actually made use of in the elimination 

 of weeds from arable soil. It seems probable that similar 

 premature or unduly rapid stimulation of embryonic 

 activity may be responsible for the failure of crops in the 

 seedbed or in the field, especially where germination has 

 perhaps been inhibited by interference with the orderly 

 sequence of enzymic activities characteristic of embryonic 

 metabolism, such interference being due to abnormal 

 temperature or moisture. 



In order to combine such knowledge with further 

 information of a different kind such as the effect of climate 

 or manurial treatment upon the nutritional value of the 

 mulberry leaf, and the resulting action upon the resistance 

 of the silkworm to infection, much more investigation is 

 necessary, but in view of the undoubted fact that the pro- 

 duction of raw silk in India depends primarily, just as it 

 does in Europe, upon the possibility of avoiding diseases 

 amongst the silkworms themselves, of which diseases by 

 far the most destructive is pebrine, it seems clear that such 

 investigation is a necessary antecedent to any successful 

 attempt to resuscitate the silk industry in India. 



It may be said, therefore, that although an important 

 step in advance has been made in the provision of an effec- 

 tive adaptation of Pasteur's classical method of seed selec- 

 tion to Indian conditions, yet the elimination of any undue 

 percentage of hereditary infection by this means must be 



