Leaders. 83 



the leaves, making them tough and distasteful. The cut- 

 up leaves are scattered over the worms which crawl up 

 on to them, following in this their natural instinct to 

 ascend. 



They are given all the food they will eat. Up to 

 the time they are ready to spin, about forty-two days, 

 their life is divided up into several periods of extreme 

 voracity, alternating with torpor, during which latter 

 period they molt and refuse to feed at all. 



The producers are all small farmers, each working up 

 independently the product of his own domain, some 

 turning out a better and some a poorer article according 

 to individual care and skill. Every year buyers come 

 from the silk-manufacturing centres of France to buy 

 cocoons. The gut-buyers appear at the same time, one 

 urging the farmers to market their crop in the shape of 

 cocoons, the other in the form of gut ; and the one who 

 succeeds best in persuading the producer that his inter- 

 est lies in dealing with him gets the crop. 



Gut is named in the trade according to thickness, as 

 follows, beginning with the thinnest : Refina, Fina, 

 Regular, Padrona Second, Padrona First, Marana, Dou- 

 ble Thick Marana, Imperial, and Hebra. Flat, irregular 

 gut is known as Estriada. Since the purchaser from the 

 original producer buys by weight, paying the same price 

 for the good, the bad, and the indifferent, it is no easy 

 matter to pre-estimate the prospective profit or loss on 

 his purchase. The larger sizes afford a large profit, 

 while the inferior qualities will not pay cost ; so, after 

 the manner of merchants in all trades but that, if any, 

 to which my reader belongs, it is not uncommon to work 

 off the Estriadas, etc., by smuggling a few such strands 

 into each bundle of good gut. 



