1 6 INTRODUCTION. 



at the College of France. It offered immense difficulties to a man, 

 who, by his literary habits, found himself completely a stranger to the 

 proceedings which he had to describe, and who met, for the first time, 

 with the greater part of the technical terms which explain them. 

 The raisers of the silk worms, and the agriculturists, will observe 

 the patience and sagacity required of M. Julien, to enter so intimate- 

 ly upon this subject, and exposing all the details with a clearness 

 and precision which one could only expect from a person versed in 

 that culture. 



The original of that translation made part of a great and magnifi- 

 cent Agricultural collection, published by order of the Emperor, 

 where is given a summary of the most scattered works which treat 

 of the cultivation of mulberry trees, and the rearing of silk worms. 

 The Compilers have only reported faithfully the different methods 

 used in China, without seeking to show those which appear to them 

 the best, or to explain the contradictions which sometimes appear 

 there. These apparent contradictions will be easily excused, seeing 

 that the Authors of this work desired to make known the methods of 

 the different provinces, methods which are necessarily subordinate to 

 the wants of each locality to the advancement of its inhabitants, and 

 the difference of climates. 



I should like, in terminating these reflections, to call the attention 

 of the reader to some important points of the Chinese work ; for ex- 

 ample, upon the manner of making the butterflies lay their eggs, 

 and of preserving the eggs ; also, of the means employed to make 

 them hatch at the same time. I will point attention, from the same 

 authority, to the disastrous effects which result from the sudden in- 

 troduction of cold and damp air in a silk room, where the tempera- 

 ture is high, as well as the fatal influence which is produced by the 

 fermentation of the leaves, upon the health of the silk worms. I 

 will add another fact, to give in a few words an idea of the incontest- 

 able superiority of the Chinese methods over the European : it is, 

 that they hardly lose one silk worm out of a hundred, while the Eu- 

 ropeans lose fifty out of a hundred. 



CAMILLE BEAUVAIS. 



