96 A CONTEMPORARY FRENCH AGRICULTURIST 



de remarque que Thomme vertueux leur ofFre, tant petit 

 soit-il." 



The chapter on silk-culture begins with the ancients, 

 telling how Virgil believed that silk grew on trees, how 

 Pliny, though he knew that silk was spun by insects, 

 supposed that the insects were generated from fallen 

 flowers,^ how under the emperor Aurelian silk was worth 

 its weight in gold, how two monks brought silkworm 

 eggs from Cathay to Byzantium in the reign of Justinian,^ 

 and how from this time silk-culture gradually spread 

 through the Mediterranean countries. 



De Serres traces the introduction of the silkworm 

 and the mulberry-tree into France to the return of 

 Charles VIII from Italy (1494).3 By 1600 the industry 

 was well-established in Provence, Languedoc and some 

 of the neighbouring provinces, and had been attempted 

 in Touraine, the Orleannais and Normandy. In 1554 

 an edict had been put forth to encourage the planting 

 of mulberries. De Serres himself had reared silkworms 

 and collected their cocoons for thirty-five years when he 

 began to write about them. 



In 1599 Henri Quatre, having remarked that imported 

 silk and silk-stuffs cost the French people "plus de 

 quatre milions d'or " every year, became eager to spread 

 silk-culture in his own dominions. De Serres was invited 

 to report on the subject, and having his Thedtre ready 

 for the press (it was published in the following year) he 

 extracted from it one chapter, which was printed as a 

 little 8vo pamphlet of about a hundred pages, called La 

 Cuillete de la Soye. A little later, in 1605, Laffemas, 



^ De Serres says leaves. 



2 lb was only then, that is, in the sixth century a.d. that Europeans came to 

 know that silk is spun by caterpillars which feed on the mulberry-tree. 



■^ Earlier dates are also quoted. The first pope who resided at Avignon, 

 Clement V, is said to have introduced them in 1305. 





