272 



tLroughout which the mulberry is extensively cultivated. At the village of Shaug- 

 lin I could obtain no satisfactory information regarding the wild worm, as the natives 

 termed it, and I therefore went a few miles into the country and finally reached a 

 email village, where I saw the first crop of wild cocoons in the process of being spun. 



I made inquiries respecting the eggs, but the people seemed totally ignorant of the 

 matter, and I was repeatedly told that these worms came from heaven, which ex- 

 plains the term used in the letter of the Commissioner of Agriculture, Tien-seng- 

 tsan, which, literally translated, is htaveu-born silk-worm. Throughout a circuit of 

 '20 miles this wild worm is met with. No attempt is made to propagate them. They 

 take up their abode in the mulberry orchards from which the domestic worm is fed, 

 and they are regarded bj' some of the farmers as a nuisance, while others in whose 

 orchards they are numerous gather and dispose of the cocoons. 



I could only learn of five places where the spinning of these cocoons is carried on. 



I secured four samples of cloth, which I have marked Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4. No. 1 is 

 a crape used for women's turbans, for which I paid the retail price of 70 cents, Mex- 

 ican. No. 2 is a kind of gauze, and is used in various wjjys; price, 40 cents. No. 3 

 is used for clothing; price, 52^ cents. No. 4 is made from the outside covering of the 

 cocoon, from which a kind of down, used for wadding in quilts and winter clothing, 

 is also made. Sample No. 5 is a lot of cocoons before being stripped, and No. 6 shows 

 the appearance wben ready for winding. Sample No. 7 shows the spun silk as taken 

 from the reel.* 



It will be observed that it is of a yellowish color and much coarser than the ordi- 

 nary silk. I did not succeed in obtaining any of the eggs, the second crop being all 

 hatched, but I made arrangements to have a quantity sent me as soon as the worms, 

 which are now about twenty days old, have developed into moths. I expect they 

 will arrive in Shanghai in the latter part of September. Eggs laid in the eighth 

 moon hatch out so that the cocoons are ready to gather in the following sixth moon, 

 forming the first crop. The second crop is gathered in the eighth, and no attention 

 whatever is given at any time to the breeding or raising of these worms. 



They must lay their eggs on the bark of the mulberry tree as well as the leaves, for 

 in the autumn the leaves are all stripped from the trees and fed to sheep. Yet the crop 

 is always about the same. 



Attempts to cultivate them or to compel them to lay their eggs indoors will, I was 

 informed, prove unsatisfactory. The moths will either escape or die. I was told 

 that they never cross with the domestic worm. They feed upon the mulberry leaves 

 exclusively. I made inquiries as to their origin, and was told that they had always 

 existed throughout that section. Information that I had previously obtained in 

 Shanghai to the efiect that they are a degenerate type of the ordinary worm, caused 

 by the advent of the rebels twenty-five years ago, was not corroborated by the an- 

 swers to my questions on the subject. An old man of seventy, who was busy reeling 

 silk, told me that he had known of them for over sixty years. The natives spoke of 

 their hardiness and their inditterence to rain, wind, or any of the conditions that 

 seriously aftect the domestic worm. 



The majority of the natives of whom I made inquiries knew nothing of their 

 habits. They gather the cocoons from the trees twice a year and regard them as a 

 free gift from heaven. 



I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



W. S. Emens, 

 Interpreter United States Consulate-General. 



General J. D. Kennedy, 



Consul-General of the United States, Shanghai. 



" These samples are in the Department's silk museum. 



