92 THE CALIFORNIA 



incubation in three or four days ; the teeming eggs are 

 then covered with tender mulberry leaves on which the 

 newly hatched worms creep up instinctively. 



TREATMENT OF COCOONS. 



The cocoons destined for filature must not be allowed 

 to remain for many days with the worms alive within 

 them, for should the chrysalis have leisure to grow, ma- 

 ture, and come out, the filaments at one end would be 

 cut through and thus lose half of their value ; it is 

 therefore necessary to extinguish the life of the animal 

 by heat, which is done either by exposing the cocoons 

 for a few days to sunshine, or by placing them in a hot 

 oven ; a heat of 170 Fahrenheit is sufficient for effect- 

 ing this purpose. 



Eighty pounds French, or eighty-eight English, of 

 cocoons are the average produce from one ounce of 

 eggs, or one hundred pounds from an ounce and a 

 quarter ; but Mr. Cobzer, of Alsace, obtained no less 

 than one hundred and sixty-five pounds. The silk ob- 

 tained from a cocoon is from 750 to 1,150 feet long ; 

 the varnish by which the coils are glued slightly to- 

 gether is soluble in warm water. 



OF SILK HUSBANDRY IN GENERAL. 



The silk husbandry, as it may be called, is completed 

 in France within six weeks from the end of April, and 

 thus affords the most rapid of agricultural returns, re- 

 quiring merely a little capital for the purchase of the 

 leaf. In buying up cocoons and in filature, capital may 

 be laid out to great advantage. 



