HINTS ON SILKWORM-REARING IN THE PUNJAB. 



(ft) Keeping the seed in the heat of the sun in the day time 

 and inside the bed quilt at night. Hatchings by these 

 methods are, it need hardly be said, not successful : they 

 go on for a long time ; the worms are poor and unequal, 

 and the crop is often entirely bad. 



Incubation should be done either by the fire or by the incubator : 

 Incubation by fire. This is affected as follows : 



A small room in the house is selected which is as little exposed 

 as possible to the sun. The eggs are taken out of the box and placed 

 in a heap on a sheet of white paper on a small stool (piti) in the room. 

 The legs of the stool are set in plates containing water to prevent ants 

 ascending : and the eggs are covered over with a small open work 

 basket to keep rats off. A basin containing water is also placed near 

 the eggs to create a moist atmosphere : this is essential to successful 

 hatchings. A small thermometer is also placed in the room to indi- 

 cate the temperature. 



As soon as the eggs have been thus exposed fires are lighted 

 in the room to keep it tiniformly warm day and night. 



A dung cake fire is the best and cheapest. The cakes are lighted 

 outside the room in the open, and are brought in only when they 

 have become perfectly smokeless. Fires are kept up regularly till all 

 the hatchings are over. Special care should be taken to keep the 

 fire well alight through the night : it should be built up with 

 cinders, as it will thus give heat more evenly and for a longer time. 



The room should be kept at about 77 F. It is difficult to keep a 

 very even temperature by the method just described ; small variations, how- 

 ever, do not make much difference : hence if the temperature is kept bet- 

 ween 70 F. 80 F. day and night, the hatchings will be quite satis- 

 factory.. Any rise of temperature above 80 F. should be 'especially 

 avoided as it makes the worms weak and liable to disease. 



Thermometers are useful but are beyond the reach of ordinary 

 village rearers. A pleasant heat should be aimed at. Practice is the 

 best guide in this matter. 



Incubation by incubator. This is the best system to obtain regular 

 and early hatchings. Two incubators have been found useful and can 

 be recommended. One is the French castelet in which large quantities 

 of seed (20 ozs. 32 ozs.) are hatched at a time. This can be used 

 only where the rearers combine to make up the necessary amount of 

 seed. 



Another incubator, called the " Home-Incubator, " has been 

 devised by the author for the cottage rearer in which one to two 

 ounces of eggs can be successfully hatched. It is cheap and simple 

 in its working, and can be used by even the most ignorant villager. 



