212 THE INSECT WORLD. 



the empress, named by Chinese authors, according to the order of 

 their dynasties, found an agreeable occupation in superintending the 

 hatching, rearing, and feeding of silkworms, in making silk, and 

 working it up when made. There was an enclosure attached to the 

 palace for the cultivation of mulberry trees. 



" The empress, accompanied by queens and the greatest ladies of 

 the court, went in state into this enclosure, and gathered with her own 

 hand the leaves of three branches which her ladies in waiting had 

 lowered till they were within her reach ; the finest pieces of silk which 

 she made herself, or which were made by her orders and under her 

 own eye, were destined for the ceremony of the grand sacrifice offered 

 to Chang-si. (Plate V.) 



" It is p'obable," adds Duhalde, " that policy had more to do 

 than anything else with all this trouble taken by the empresses. 

 Their intention was to induce, by their example, the princesses and 

 ladies of quality, and the whole people, to rear silkworms : in the 

 same way as the emperors, to ennoble in some sort agriculture, and to 

 encourage the people to undertake laborious works, never failed, at 

 the beginning of each spring, to guide the plough in person, and 

 with great state to plough up a few furrows, and in these sow some 

 seed. 



" As far as concerns the empresses, it is a long time since they 

 have ceased to apply themselves to the manufacture of silk ; one 

 sees, nevertheless, in the precincts of the imperial palace, a large 

 space covered with houses, the road leading to which is still called 

 the road which leads to the place destined for the rearing of silkworms, 

 for the amusement of the empresses and queens. In the books of 

 the philosopher Mencius, is a wise police rule, made under the first 

 reigns, which determines the space destined for the cultivation of 

 mulberry trees, according to the extent of the land possessed by each 

 private individual.^' 



M. Stanislas Julien^' tells us of many regulations made by the 

 Emperor of China, to render obligatory the care and attention requisite 

 to rearing silk. 



Tchin-iu, being governor of the district of Kien-Si, ordered that 

 every man should plant fifty feet of land with mulberry trees.! The 

 Emperor (under the dynasty of Witei) gave to each man twenty acres 



* "Resume des principaux Traites Chinois sur la Culture des Miiriers et 

 I'Education des Vers a Soie, traduit par Stanislas Julien." Paris, imprimerie 

 royale, 1837. 



t *' Annales de la Dynastie des Liang." 



