REELING AND MANUFACTURING SILK. 93 



have less gum, lose less in winding, and take a better white or 

 pale blue. 



" To the foregoing kinds of cocoons, another is mentioned in 

 recent French works, and called sattiny. Its tissue is coarse 

 and like flannel, and the surface shines. The silk of tliis cocoon 

 is bad." 



Perhaps it may not be necessary generally to make so many 

 kinds ; but by studying the foregoing, every one may be enabled 

 to select such as will reel well together. The most simple but 

 not the best method of reeling and manufacturing silk is that 

 practised in Connecticut, as described by Cobb : — 



" In the first place the cocoons are stripped of their floss and 

 sorted according to their quality. Then a large kettle set in a 

 furnace or in an arch is filled with water, and a fire is kept un- 

 der it ; and when it is about to boil a quart of cocoons is thrown 

 into it. They are immediately stirred perpendicularly in the 

 water by a bunch of broom-corn tied close together as large as a 

 person's arm, and cut square at the end, or by a corn broom, or 

 something similar. In this way the ends are collected and at- 

 tached to the bushy extremity. They are then drawn up by 

 shaking the broom or whatever they are collected with, up and 

 down in order to keep the cocoons in the water, otherwise they 

 would rise. If enough for a thread is not collected the first 

 time, those ends that are drawn up are taken off" the bush with 

 the hand and drawn to one side of the kettle. The process is 

 then repeated until a sufficient number is collected to form a 

 thread of the size required, which is usually from eighty to one 

 hundred and fifty cocoons. 



" Reeling is then commenced on a common hand reel, (such 

 as is in common use in families in New England for reeling yam 

 from the spinning wheel), and the silk fibres run off about as 

 fast and with as little difficulty as yarn from a spindle. Some of 

 the cocoons run off before others ; and when on this account the 

 thread becomes too small, all the fibres are broken off, and what 

 is reeled is tied by itself on the reel and another quart of cocoons 

 is thrown into the kettle ; the ends are collected and reeled in 

 the same way as before, and each separate piece is tied by it- 



