AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 189 



self in this costly material, and Alexander sent silk-worms to his 

 teacher, Aristotle, who is the first to describe them. But the 

 introduction of silk-culture was reserved for a much later time. 

 Every school-boy knows the story. Two Nestorian monks, as Pro- 

 copius relates, brought some eggs of the silk-spinner from Khotan 

 to the court of Justinian (550 A.D.) in their hollow staves; the 

 caterpillars produced from these were then fed with leaves of the 

 black mulberry tree {Moms nigra^ L.), which, though unknown in 

 East Asia, had long been grown in Western Asia, its probable 

 home, on account of its fruit. 



Italy, for a long time the foremost silk-producing country of 

 Europe, was comparatively late in learning to cultivate the silk- 

 worm. It was introduced in 11 30 A.D. through King Roger II. 

 of Sicily. He brought it from Greece after a glorious campaign 

 against the Byzantine emperor Emanuel, and with it Greek silk- 

 worm breeders, spinners and weavers, whom he compelled to settle 

 in Palermo and benefit his subjects by teaching them their art. 

 From Sicily silk-culture spread to Calabria and northward over 

 all Italy, but so slowly that it was not introduced into Milan till 

 the middle of the sixteenth century. Lombardy is now the chief 

 seat of the Italian silk-culture. Of the 40,000,000 kg. of cocoons 

 (equal to 100,000 cwt. of raw silk), valued at 170,000,000 lire, which 

 Italy produced in 1857, Lombardy alone yielded 15,000,000 kg. 

 equal to 37,500 cwt of raw silk. 



The Iberian peninsula became acquainted with silk-culture long 

 before Italy, in the eighth century, through the Arabs. 



Its introduction here and from Greece into Italy is attributable 

 to wars of conquest, and in like manner France owes to a war 

 her first mulberry-trees and silk-worms. After the conquest of 

 Naples by Charles VIII. in the year 1440, some French noblemen 

 brought them home with them. But in France, too, silk-culture 

 developed so slowly that the Lombard weavers, whom Louis IX. 

 and Francis I. imported for the establishment of the silk industry 

 in France, had to obtain their raw material from Italy and Spain. 

 Under Charles IX. the mulberry plantations became more and 

 more extensive ; but the silk industry and silkworm breeding did 

 not find a really firm footing till Henri IV. took a lively personal 

 interest in them, giving his subjects a notable example of cir- 

 cumspection and perseverance in this matter. The luxury dis- 

 played by the court of Louis XIV. together with the high honours 

 which were held out to successful silk manufactures, on Colbert's 

 suggestion, were powerful means for the stimulation of the 

 silk industry ; and yet at that very time silk-culture suffered a 

 visible decline and was only able to furnish a fifth part of the 6,000 

 cwt. of raw silk which the French industry then consumed. It 

 experienced a revival under Louis XVI. ; before the Great Re- 

 volution the annual crop was 6,500,000 kg. of cocoons (about 

 ij5oo,ooo kg. of silk). The Revolution reduced this to 3,600,000 



