BENEFICIAL AND INJURIOUS INSECTS 



insects generally, man has ever had a sweet tooth. In 

 the course of time, apriculture grew into a vast industry 

 whose chief product was widely used as a food delicacy 

 and in the preparation of elixirs, and the by-product, 

 wax, in many highly serviceable ways. To the men of 

 this age it was left to know the far greater sei'vice of 

 bees and other insects in the fertilization of plants. 



In manifest value to man and influence upon his life, 

 the first rank among insects belongs to the silk-worm 

 moth. No labor of civilized men has a history that, 

 with high antiquity, is so varied, so interesting, and so 

 important as the silk industry. The search for the 

 ''Golden Fleece" has been thought to be the legend of 

 Europe's long and eager search for the mystery of silk 

 culture. The product appears to have reached Greece 

 from India by way of Persia. India received it from 

 that swarming hive of ingenious industry, China. As 

 far back as eight centuries before Christ we have credible 

 notice of the culture of the mulberry-tree and the manu- 

 facture of silk cloth among that people. 



But Chinese tradition carries the art eighteen centu- 

 ries further back. It attributes the rearing of silk 

 worms and utilizing their cocoons to the Empress Siling 

 Shi, and the art of making clothing therefrom to her 

 husband, the Emperor Hwangti. The invention raised 

 the empress to the rank of a divinity, an honor better 

 deserved and more wisely bestowed than in most cases 

 of human deification. 



The subject opens tempting vistas. But we must 

 turn therefrom, only stopping to reflect how largely the 

 Chinese discovery must have influenced the character 

 and life of the Chinese and of civilization at large. 

 Consider the multitudes engaged in cultivating the mul- 



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