164 ON REARING SILK WORMS. 



abundance. The branches can be drawn towards the per- 

 son gathering them, who cuts them, and afterwards picks 

 the leaves. It is not necessary to make use of a ladder or 

 to ascend the tree. .;??. 



The following is the method that must be followed to 

 propagate mulberry trees by seed. Towards the time call- 

 ed Li-hia, (the 6th of May,) when the fruit of these trees 

 is purple and ripe, they must be gathered, crushed, and 

 soaked in yellow clayey water, afterwards it must be sown 

 and watered, on the surface of the soil. In the Autumn of 

 the same year, the young mulberry plants will be a foot 

 high. They must be transplanted the following year. If 

 they are manured and watered carefully, they will grow 

 rapidly. If among them some are found bearing fruit and 

 blossoms, their leaves will be thin and not abundant. There 

 are also some mulberry trees called koa-scmg, that is to say : 

 flowering mulberry trees ; their leaves are very thin and 

 unfit for the nourishment of silk worms. 



The grafted mulberry trees bear thick and nourishing 

 leaves. There are also leaves produced by the tree of tche ; 

 use is made of them to supply the want of mulberry leaves. 

 I have not seen, says the Chinese author, the trees of tche, 

 in the province of Tche-kiang, but these trees are very 

 numerous in the province of Sse-lchuen. In poor families 

 they are given to the silk worms when the mulberry leaves 

 are exhausted. Strings for the bow and guitar ought to be 

 made of the silk of worms which have been fed on leaves 

 of tche. Their cocoons are called ki-kien. That expres- 

 sion implies, that the silk obtained from it is flexible and 

 strong. 



Whenever the leaves are gathered, scissors must abso- 

 lutely be used. The best are those from the village of 



