SILK. 179 



silkworm oak, which resembles somewhat the leaves of the chrysanthemum. 

 As they grow older, the diet is changed to mulberry leaves. This is 

 x hard silk,' and none of it is found in Pao-ning or Shun-K'ing. The 

 worms which produce the wild silk of Kwei Chou are fed on the young 

 leaves of the ch'ing kang, a species of Quercus. These two trees must 



therefore be closely allied The fabric made from the wild silk, or 



shan-sz, is also called ke-ta chow, from the lumps and nodules which are 

 found in its coarse texture. 



"The newly-hatched grubs must be fed daily with clipped leaves, 

 and the leaves must be changed three times a day. There must be no 

 lime or dirt upon them, and they should be carefully wiped with a damp 

 kerchief. Everything near the silkworms must be kept scrupulously 

 clean. After ten days they have grown to the size of a caterpillar and 

 developed their eight legs. When mulberry leaves have not been used 

 from the beginning, this is the time for substituting them for the leaves 

 of the silkworm oak. After a month, again, the worms begin to make 

 nests on the stalks, form an egg [cocoon] around themselves, and begin to 

 disgorge silk. As soon as they cease to move, they are removed from 

 the branch. 



" A certain number of insects are allowed to live, in order to produce 

 eggs for the succeeding year. The grub comes out of the cocoon in the 

 fourth moon (May) and lays its eggs upon sheets of paper provided for 

 that purpose. These sheets are carefully placed in boxes and hung up in 

 a dry place in the house until the first moon (February) of the ensuing 

 year. On the arrival of the solar term Ching Chih, or 'movement of 

 larvse' (about March 5), the sheets of eggs are taken out of the boxes 

 and carried about in the hat or bosom, or placed among the bedclothes, 

 in order to be hatched. Sometimes they are placed, instead, in a sort of 

 large basket or sieve, which is kept in a warm place. 



" In washing the silk, or wetting it in order to wind it from the 

 cocoons, the Chinese do not put potash and the caul of pips into the 

 water, as has been supposed by some. These ingredients are, however, 

 used to make silk glossy in the weaving. The term ' Kwo-p'en ' is used 

 to indicate silk which has undergone more than one washing, or in the 

 washing of which more than one pan or basin is used. All silk must 

 pass through at least one basin of water, so that the definition, given by 

 the delegates, of ' Kopun, so called from its passing through the basin in 

 reeling," is hardly correct. As the Szechuen washers are paid according 

 to the number of cocoons they can get through, the rate being 4Jd. per 

 ton or peck, no pains whatever are taken to keep the thread at a uniform 

 thickness. Instead of taking up the ends of five cocoons, as is done by 

 women in Soochow, the workmen frequently grasp as many as thirty. 



