AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 203 



altitudes hatched a better species of worm than those of the lower 

 countries, where the breeding was more active ; consequently the 

 breeders of the province of Joshiu, where the silk industry specially 

 flourished, brought their eggs from Shinano. The government 

 now permitted only those breeders living in high localities to pro- 

 duce eggs for seed, controlled the breeding, and stamped the boxes 

 with the official seal before they were forwarded to treaty-ports. This 

 regulation had little effect for good upon either the home industry 

 or the export, which underwent many vicissitudes of quantity and 

 price, and which in modern times has greatly decreased. The price 

 reached the highest limit in 1873, when the average worth of a box 

 was 2"i5 yen, or about eight shillings and sixpence, while in 1877 

 it had fallen to 0*29 yen, or one shilling and twopence the box. In 

 1868 there were exported 1,886,325 boxes, worth 3,782,351 yen, or 

 about ^^727,9 1 2 ; in 1877, 1,167,502 boxes, worth 341,467 yen, or a 

 little more than ^66,954. 



The silk-culture of Japan is, as has been before remarked, 

 limited to the principal island of Hondo. Of the various silk pro- 

 ducts of this island (Japanese Kinu or Ito in the most general sig- 

 nificance) which are sent to Europe and the United States from 

 Yokohama, the most important is reel-silk (Japanese, Sage Ito ; 

 French, ^;V;^^/ English, hanks), which is only excelled in quality 

 by the French and Italian. Besides this, there is the silk waste of 

 all kinds (French, dechets), which serves for spun silk or flurt, and 

 which includes especially the refuse that occurs in the course of 

 cultivation. This consists of flock silk (French, blaze), or the loose 

 web of the silkworm, inside of which it forms its cocoon, the 

 Tama-mayti, or double cocoons (French, douppions), the Degara 

 (French, cocons perch), i.e. cocoons from which the butterflies have 

 crawled out, and also imperfect cocoons. The Japanese uses all 

 those varieties of cocoons which are unsuitable for the manufac- 

 ture of grege for his Ma-wata, or silk fleece, after they have been 

 softened in a weak lye of wood or straw ashes, then cut up and the 

 dead chrysalis thrown away. The silk is then picked off from the 

 cocoon with the fingers, and fastened to the ends of small sticks 

 in order to keep it straight, the fleece from twenty to sixty cocoons 

 lying piled in this way together. When dry, this is used as lining 

 for clothes and bed quilts, or is spun as wool is with us, or is 

 shipped and sold with other silk waste. Another kind of refuse 

 comes from the unwinding of the cocoons. This takes in especi- 

 ally the outermost web of the cocoon, which, after soaking in warm 

 water, is beaten by a small hand-broom. Some silk necessarily 

 clings to the broom before the proper thread is found, and these 

 ragged bits are called in Japanese, Kawa-muki (bark silk), Noshi-ito, 

 and Shike-ito, in French, frisons. To these are added the threads 

 broken in reeling, as well as the imperfect cocoons. 



The silkworm eggs (Jap., Tane ; French, graines), form another 

 article of export, the importance of which has been already noted ; 



