PART VII. 



VARIOUS TOPICS 



SILK CULTURE. 



THE precise period when silk was first used as a textile material is not known, but its 

 history is one of great antiquity. It seems to have come into use after wool and 

 linen, and is one of the early industries mentioned in history. Writers differ very 

 materially in regard to the date of its origin, some placing it at 2700 and others 

 1700 B. C. The Chinese records state that the wife of Hoang-Ti, the third emperor of 

 China, first tested the practicability of using the thread from the cocoons, and discovered the 

 method of reeling the silk and of employing it to make garments. Silk is one of the most 

 valuable of fabrics, and the producing of it has attracted much attention in all civilized coun 

 tries where it may be produced. The importance of this industry, and the increased interest 

 at present manifested in it in this country, together with the growing demand for the raw 

 material, augurs favorably for its becoming more extended and permanently established here 

 at a time not far distant, it now being in its infancy. The following on the habits of the silk 

 worm, together with practical instructions relating to their rearing and general management, 

 is extracted from the manual of Prof. C. V. Riley, one of the best authorities on this subject 

 in this country, if not in the world: 



Characteristics and Different States or Stages of the Silk- Worm. The 



silk-worm, or that which supplies the ordinary silk of commerce, is the larva of a small moth 

 known to scientific men as Sericaria mori. It is often popularly characterized as the Mulberry 

 Silk-Worm. Its place among insects is with the Lepidoptera, or scaly-winged insects, family 

 Bombycidce, or spinners. There are several closely allied species, which spin silk of different 

 qualities, none of which, however, unites strength and fineness in the same admirable propor 

 tions as does that of the mulberry species. The latter has, moreover, acquired many useful 

 peculiarities during the long centuries of cultivation it has undergone. It has in fact become 

 a true domesticated animal. The quality which man has endeavored to select in breeding this 

 insect is, of course, silk-producing, and hence we find that, when we compare it with its wild 

 relations, the cocoon is vastly disproportionate to the size of the worm which makes it or the 

 moth that issues from it. Other peculiarities have incidentally appeared, and the great number 

 of varieties or races of the silk-worm almost equals those of the domestic dog. The white color 

 of the species, its seeming want of all desire to escape as long as it is kept supplied with leaves, 

 and the loss of the power of flight on the part of the moth, are all undoubtedly the result of 

 domestication. From these facts, and particularly from that of the great variation within 

 specific limits to which the insect is subject, it will be evident to all that the following 

 remarks upon the nature of the silk-worm must necessarily be very general in their character. 

 The silk-worm exists in four states egg, larva, chrysalis, and adult or imago which 

 we will briefly describe. 



The Egg. The egg of the silk -worm moth is called by silk raisers the &quot;seed.&quot; It is 

 nearly round, slightly flattened, and in size resembles a turnip seed. Its color when first 

 deposited is yellow, and this color it retains if unimpregnated. If impregnated, however, it 

 soon acquires a gray, slate, lilac, violet, or even dark green hue, according to variety or 

 breed. It also becomes indented. When diseased, it assumes a still darker and dull tint. 

 With some varieties it is fastened to the substance upon which it is deposited by a gummy 

 secretion of the moth produced in the act of ovipositing. Other varieties, however, among 

 which may be mentioned the Adrianople whites and the yellows from Nouka, in the Caucassus, 



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