484 



The silk-worm being a cold-blooded insect, receiving its temperature 

 from the atmosphere, the necessity of keeping up a suitable degree of 

 warmth will at once be perceived. The degree of temperature has 

 been found by experience to be not far from the numbers indicated in 

 the table, and it must be maintained not only through the feeding and 

 spinning state, but also through those of the chrysalis and moth. It is 

 indispensable, for in all the mysterious changes of the silk-worm heat 

 is the existing agent ; it is nearly in a state of torpor between 50° and 

 60°, yet it will spin, but the time required will be twice as long, and 

 the amount of silk not half so much, as when stimulated by a conge- 

 nial degree of heat. Near the temperature of 77°, under active man- 

 agement, it completes its feeding state in 24 to 30 days, its spinning 

 state in 5 or 6 more ; it is a chrysalis about two weeks, and a moth one, 

 during which time the sexes unite, and the female laying two or three 

 hundred eggs, the circle of transformations is for the first time broken 

 by death. 



French writers compute an ounce of eggs to contain 40,000, but 

 from numerous calculations I have never found the number to exceed 

 25,000. In this experiment I hatched an ounce, and the number of 

 worms was not greater than set down in the table. The novice is 

 always over-estimating numbers. I stifled the chrysales with camphor, 

 and approve of the method as being cheap, expeditious, and perfectly 

 efficacious, and at the same lime not hardening the gum of the cocoon, 

 which consequently reels with uninterrupted freedom. Miss Barton, 

 who reeled my silk excellently, preferred cocoons treated with camphor 

 to those not stifled, because the dead chrysalides gave her much less 

 annoyance in the heated water of the basin. Reeling silk is a beauti- 

 ful process that never fails to excite admiration, yet it is accomplished 

 with ease, and with a little practice and steady perseverance, a young 

 woman will reel a bushel of cocoons, yielding a pound or more of silk, 

 in a day. The art is not however yet carried to such perfection as to 

 enable us to make the most of our materials, for all but expert reelers 

 waste a considerable proportion. 



The actual amount of labor required in the first ages of the silk 

 worm is very small, it is an agreeable pastime. But when immense 

 numbers pas^s into the fifth age, the labor, difllculties and cares become 

 great and incessantly greater, and for the first time we are sensible of 

 the enormous service which the establishment demands. Then we dis- 

 cover the obstacle, and it is like a mountain ; we suddenly find our- 

 selves surrounded by myriads of voracious insects that double their 



