CULTURE OF SILKWORMS. 15 



purposes, without the use of the microscope. The system 

 consists of the placing of each female moth under a small cup 

 inverted on a sheet of paper, on which it lays its eggs. The 

 cups are suffered to remain with the eggs and moth beneath 

 them until the eggs begin to hatch, and the eggs of all those 

 moths which are alive at that time are taken to be healthy, and 

 those which have died prior to the hatching of the eggs are 

 thrown away as unhealthy. I liave exi^erimented with this 

 system, and there appears to be a good deal to be said in favour 

 of it ; the moths which survive being almost without exception 

 healthy ; though it by no means follows that all that die early are 

 diseased. To deal with the same number of moths as mentioned 

 above would, however, involve the manipulation of about 150,000 

 china cups, and would require over 4,000 square feet of table 

 surface to put them out on. It has the great disadvantage that 

 the eggs cannot be distributed as eggs, and that the yoinig 

 worms could oidy be sent a short distance from the breeding 

 establishment. In the system advocated above, either the cocoons 

 of the " seconds," or their eggs could be distributed, and there 

 would be jjlenty of time to send them long distances. 



CULTIVATION OF MULBEEKIES. 



From the experience acquired in Larut it would a2:)pear that 

 the best way to cultivate mvilberries would be to fell the jungle, 

 burn and clear it as if going to plant padi or coffee. Then jmt 

 in the mulberry cuttings, or better, the young j^lants, previously 

 raised in a nursery, at distances of 12 feet by 12 feet, that is, 

 302 plants per acre. If it is wanted to begin picking early, they 

 might be planted at 6 feet by 6 feet, or 1,210 per acre, and every 

 other row, and the intermediate bushes of the remaining rows, 

 being picked at first, the bushes which had been j^icked when 

 young being afterwards cut out, as the unpicked ones grow 

 larger and require more room. If these latter are allowed to 

 gTow to 6 feet in height and to become large spreading bushes, 

 they will last for years ; but when grown as the Chinese grow 

 them, which is an attempt to violate all the conditions which 

 the plant naturally requires to be fulfilled, they are very delicate 

 and susce})tible to the influence of over-picking, disease or 

 neglect of weeding, and are very apt to die out. They should 

 never be picked too close, as it is always to be remembered that 

 the leaves are the organs which supjjly a plant with its principal 

 food, that is, the whole of its carbon, and indirectly with all its 

 other food, as without the leaves to exhale the watery portion of 

 the sap, the roots cannot absorb moisture from the soil, and 

 unless they absorb water they cannot acquire nourishment from 

 the soil, as the water is the medium in which the nutritive parts 

 of the earth are conveyed to the plant through the roots. 



