308 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



of success liave been stated very difi'erently by different writers, aud 

 with much contradiction. Some attribute it to degeneracy in the mul- 

 berry; others to the worms being stinted in their food by the native 

 feeder, especially during the season of drought, when leaves were scarce; 

 some to the weakened constitution of the worm, caused by a too rapid 

 reproduction ; others to want of ventilation and cleanliness in the feed- 

 ing-room. The truth will, lierhaps, be found more in all of these causes 

 than in any one of them. The most successful of all growers was a 

 native, Jaffir by name. He raised worms but once a year, stating that 

 the leaves lose their best qualities if fed in the heat of summer; that 

 young leaves were necessary for young worms. He fed no more worms 

 than would produce about sixty pounds of silk. Under European feed- 

 ers of long experience and much intelligence, with feeding-rooms so 

 constructed as to avoid every objection, the failures have been more 

 marked than among the native feeders, who raised but a limited number 

 of worms as a household occupation, the feeding-room usually being in 

 the upper part of their huts. 



One of the most prominent silk culturists was a Captain Hutton. He 

 regarded the dark stripes on the worms, when young, as indicating the 

 original stock, and their light color, when grown, as a mark of constitu- 

 tional weakness occasioned by too much forcing. For several years he 

 selected for breeders those that longest retained these stripes, and said 

 that this selection produced a more vigorous worm. But the final result 

 may be seen in the following statement made by him : 



I foel fully persuaded now, after several years of observation, tliat the constitution 

 of the ■worm has been so thoroughly undermined that, although we may be able to 

 restore it to its natural appearance, it "wUl never be able thoroughly to shake off tho 

 various diseases to which it has so long been subject. The only way open to the seri- 

 culturist, therefore, is to reseek, in the original habitat, in China, for the wild worms 

 in their natural state of freedom on the trees ; and, should any of them be procurable, 

 then may the stock in Europe be gradually renewed, and the present impending ruin 

 be averted. 



The epizootic diseases, which have been so fatal in France and Italy, 

 had not then reached India, for these views of Captain Hutton were 

 written in 1864. These diseases are attributed to the constitutional 

 weakness of the worm, occasioned by an injudicious and forced "hot- 

 house culture." The largest cocoons, regardless of their firmness and 

 other qualities indicating vigorous constitutions of the chrysalis, have 

 been selected as breeders, until the vital powers of the worm have been 

 so weakened that they cannot resist the approaches of disease. 



It will be seen that the silk- worm has become, in foreign countries, as 

 constitutionally enfeebled as is the Irish potato. The rot is not more 

 fatal than the miiscardine and pehrine, the epizootics of France and Italy. 

 But this enfeebled vital force is seen in the potato to yield to the least 

 unfavorable condition of weather and soil, so that the quality of the 

 potato is greatly impaired even when outwardly it is apparently 

 healthy. So with the silk-worm. It may feed well, but the inferiority 

 of its silk betrays this constitutional weakness. Captain Hutton's 

 remedy is the same suggested to re-establish the vigor of the potato. 

 But the seedlings from the Chilian importations rapidly yield to the 

 influences that have made our older varieties so i^recarious. The 

 causes, then, of failures in foreign countries are two. First, im- 

 pairing the vigor of the mulberry plants and tho nutritious qualities of 

 their leaves, by too close and too frequent stripping and cutting during 

 the feeding season; and second, weakening the vital forces of the silk- 

 worms by injudicious forcing. 



