Silkworm Disease. 78 



The evilg resulting from overcrowding of human beings have 

 often received the attention of your worthy President, and he 

 doubtless could give you many instances where disease has 

 become epidemic in consequence. 



This new industry of rearing silkworms from seed therefore 

 brought about almost total annihilation of the worm. Indeed, I 

 am not sure whether at the present time there is remaining even 

 a remnant of that variety of the silkworm which produced the 

 large shuttle-shaped cocoon of pale or of dark yellow silk of 

 great substance and lustre. The Japanese variety produces a 

 sort of bilobed cocoon, being slightly constricted round the 

 centre, and a silk of pale greenish yellow, wanting both the sub- 

 stance and lustre of the old Italian and French race. By sub- 

 stance I mean the thickness of the individual thread forming the 

 cocoon. This is shown by the following fact : You are doubtless 

 aware that for commercial purposes the silk of each cocoon is 

 not reeled oflf separately, but three, four, five or more cocoons 

 are wound simultaneously : the thread from each, by giving a 

 rotary motion to the cocoons as they float on warm water forms 

 one large thread. Six cocoons of the Japanese variety are 

 required to form a thread equal to that produced from four 

 cocoons of the other variety. Perhaps a slight digression on the 

 subject of reeling the silk may not be out of place here. Even 

 in those palmy days of sericulture, before Pebrine became a 

 scourge and egg-rearing an industry, the Italian silk had a 

 higher reputation than French silk, although the produce of a 

 precisely similar variety of silkworm, the difference being due 

 entirely to the mode of reeling the silk from the cocoons adopted 

 in the two countries. In France each rearer was free to do as 

 he liked in the matter of reeling, and so each one wound for 

 himself the silk from the cocoons he had reared. In consequence 

 there was no uniformity. One man might reel the produce of 

 three cocoons, another of four, and a third of five cocoons 

 together. Besides, some would be more expert or more careful 

 than others in maintaining a uniform thread by at once replacing 

 a spent cocoon by a fresh one as the reeling went on, or more 

 careful in eliminating all "foul" silk from the thread. Foul 

 silk is the technical term for that loose envelope of silk sur- 

 rounding the true cocoon, and which, being very difficult to reel, 

 forms kinks and knots. It is evident therefore that the silk of 

 each rearer might vary considerably, as indeed it did. The silk 

 thus reeled was bought up by itinerant merchants, who sorted 

 out the productions as well as they could, and sold the sorted 

 silk either to larger merchants or to manufacturers. 



In Italy, on the other hand, the silk rearer was forbidden by 

 law to reel the silk the worms he had reared had produced unless 

 he was specially licensed for the purpose. Reeling silk was a 



