INSECTS IN COMMERCE 131 



there is a large court which is still called " the 

 road which leads to the place destined for the 

 rearing of silkworms." 



So much was thought of the culture of silk- 

 worms in olden times that there were all sorts of 

 laws and regulations concerning the industry. 

 Tchin-iu, a governor of Kien-Si, commanded that 

 every man in the district should plant fifty feet 

 with mulberry trees; while under one dynasty 

 every man was given twenty acres of land on con- 

 dition that he planted fifty feet with mulberry 

 trees. In the year 806 another monarch ordered 

 that every acre of land throughout the country 

 should have two feet planted with mulberry trees, 

 and a little over a hundred years later the reigning 

 emperor passed a law forbidding his subjects 

 to cut the trees down. 



For a long time China held the monopoly of 

 silk-making and exported it into many other 

 countries, so that it became a source of consider- 

 able wealth to the empire. So jealously was the 

 secret of sericulture guarded, that it was for- 

 bidden on pain of death to export silkworms' eggs 

 out of the country, or to give to any one of another 

 nationality any information as to the manner 

 in which the silkworms were reared and the 

 textures manufactured. In spite of all this care 

 the secret, as was inevitable, leaked out at last. 

 Two adventurous Persian monks are said to 

 have gone to China as missionaries, and after 

 becoming initiated in the mysteries of silkworm 

 culture they managed to obtain possession of 

 some eggs; and concealing them in hollow canes, 

 smuggled them out of the country and conveyed 



