Book VII. SILKWORM, HONEY BEE. 1105 



silk : the principal part is afterwards sent to a mill to be thrown, that is, to be twisted singly, or to have 

 two or more ends of it doubled and twisted together to form singles, tram, or organzine, in order to fit it 

 for the loom. There are, however, purposes for which a single untwisted thread is applied. We have 

 before stated that a single thread is generally composed of the filaments from four cocoons, and four of 

 these threads compose the organzine, or that used as the warp of fabrics; each thread is first spun or 

 twisted, and then the four are thrown together into one. The weft or tram generally consists oi tour raw 

 threads simply twisted together. The reason of drawing so fine a silk on the reel as that composed ot tour 

 cocoons is that the Jtieute, or attendant at the basin, cannot perfectly see more cocoons in one set, so as 

 to replace the ends when the cocoons are exhausted. If a thread of sixteen cocoons were to be reeled, the 

 Jtteuse could not ensure regularity. Sometimes she would have only eight or ten running, and at the next 

 moment possibly twenty ; consequently a most uneven silk would thus be produced : to prevent this evil, 

 four cocoons are only' run at once, and combined as before described. The important invention of 

 Mr. Heathcoat, which we shall hereafter notice, applies to the object o'' drawing ofl sixteen or more 

 cocoons at once on the reel, so as to form a thread as even as that produced by tour cocoons, and thus 



ngla 



gC 7< iOO ^CufuJretj the silkworm in England. It is well known to those who have considered the subject, 

 that the silkworm will breed and thrive very well in England, where the range and extremes ot tempera- 

 ture are within narrower limits than in France or Italy. The white mulberry flourishes equally well with 

 us as in those countries. It remains, however, to be proved whether the weight ot eaves produced on a 

 given pace of ground is equal to the average c'rop in warmer climates. This is eviden by an important 

 consideration in the question, of whether England can compete with foreign coun nes in the p.oduct, o n of 

 raw silk The high value of land in a country so densely peopled as England, and the tact that the mul- 

 berry ree not only requires great space fcr its perfect growth, but also a clear ground beneath renders the 

 project of profit A joint* tockcomnany in the manage- 



ment of which all the cabinet ministers were more or less concerned, was established in 1825, by the name 

 of "The British Irish, and Colonial Silk Company." They possessed a very large capital, and had 

 formed Mtensite plantations of trees in several parts of England and Ireland particularly near Windsor 

 and Cork Mr John Heathcoat of Tiverton, in Devonshire, has also applied himselt to the investigation 

 of hi important subject with great ardour ; and, previously to the formation ot thecompa, ,y above alluded 

 to had made considerable progress in the cultivation ot the tree and the management of the u orm \\ ith 

 the true Tberalit of a man of science, he presented to the company several thousand Italian plants destined 

 for hi" own plantations, that they mght commence their establishments without delay .It ought to be 

 ge ne alh- kno w 1 a to this genflemln we are indebted for the cheap production ot that beautiful article 

 caed bobbin-net lace, which has become so important a branch of manufacture in England It was in 

 he a temp o render'silk sufficiently even for hSs use in lace, that he made ,^*"^™^f£^* 

 we have before mentioned ; and it is from the result ot his investigations t hat the at tei i o ot govern, 

 ment has so lately been directed to the subject. Admitting, as we have done, that no natural impedi- 

 mc s e"s against the successful culture of silk in England, it will naturally ^*^^ntftm 

 hitherto made have been unsuccessful ? This question embraces a variety ot cons. lerat.o, into w Inch 

 our limits will not permit us to enter at large. We may, however observe, that neither the mulberr tree 

 nor the silkworm are indigenous to Britain. Centuries elapsed before even the ""t^B™***™ 

 their culture, which, commencing in the east of Asia, was propagated slowly •^****pi^m£ 

 ward It obtained firm root in France during the reign ot Henry IV, alter great resistance on the part 

 of the people Twlmse prejudices against the application of land to this purpose excited frequent rebellion* 

 01 me piopn, wjurac |»cjuu«^s »g" ,.!■ ... -. ■„ v„„i,,,r. i« nnl aivrmnin or: but the times which 



AoSdsofhlsmSinduslr'^suye^^ 



not less than 50 (XX) emigrated to England. From this period the manufacture ot silk goods became an 

 mportlnt branch of trale in England. The common and even still ^^Xfe^moSete^ 

 unfitted for the growth of the tree, and the production ot the worm, would probably be still more mvete- 

 rate in former times. The acknowledged fact that England is much colder than the south oil- ranee or 

 Itafy would natural y induce the idea that it was unsuitable both to the tree and the worms Individuals 

 among our countrymen have, however, constantly asserted the ""^'^gE^SSt^tZto 

 ments have been brought forward in support of their opinion. Miss Crott of York, in 1/92, sent to the 

 Sv of Arts a specimen of silk produced by worms fed entirely upo* .lettuce .leaves We are not told 

 however, whether proper trials were made by subsequent experiments to prove ts quality .and we have 

 already observed that such silk, for purposes of manufacture, is perfectly useless, even m Italy, ^ et we 

 K t b the opinion of men now perfectly conversant with the subject, that the various "periments 



and trials that have been hitherto made would long ago have succeeded, had we bee n ft I i or m n 

 all the requisite points connected with the management of the tree, the worm, and its produce the ^cocoon 

 Our experimentalists have all laboured under one difficulty, -they were .gnorant ot the reding proce,,, 

 and this probably arose from their experiments having been conducted on too small a scale to render t 

 necessary to import or require the skill of winding the silk from the cocoon. This difficulty has at length 

 been overcome by the exertions of Mr. Heathcoat, at whose establishment in Devonshire the improved 



method of reeling is now carried on with complete success. i„,„i„ 



",' , •;•>„. ,...-.,,,, „/,..,„„/ in «/„««•// the. culture of the silkworm in Britain appears to have completely 



; considerable 

 Ireland, the 



" LJ? 1 u na . '»„ iJ, 



the mulberry will produce abundance of leaves as far north as Stockholm and as he »-orms have to be 

 hatched and brought forth in artificial heat even in I- ranee there cannot be a doul t a to the u cess .ot 

 this branch of culture in any part of the British islands, tt hether it would pay is a different thing ; we 

 by no means think it would, even in Ireland. 



7602. This common honey bee (^pis mellifka L.) inhabits Europe in hollow trees, but 

 is chiefly kept in hives, being domesticated every where. Perhaps more lias been written 

 on the economy of this insect than on any other animal employed in agriculture, and 

 certainly to very little purpose. After all that has been done in England, France, and 

 Italv, the bee is still more successfully cultivated, and finer honey produced, in Poland, 

 by persons who never saw a book on the subject, or heard of the mode of depriving bees oi 

 their honey without taking their lives. Much as has been written ... 1- ranee and England 

 on this last part of the subject, it is still found the best mode to destroy the hive in taking 

 the honey. Unanswerable reasons for this practice are given by La Grenee, a French 

 apiarian,' which are elsewhere quoted by us at length {Encyc. of Lard. art. Bees), ana 

 1 4 B 



