JJo, 3. ] Silkworms in India. 173 



seer. The latter is the ordinary rate in Sibsagar bazar at present (1884). In 1876 I 

 find the price quoted as R7. Waste muga thread can be bought for R4 the seer. 



"The cloth woven from muga yarn has a bright yellow colour and a pretty gloss. 

 It stands washing much better than other silks, keeping gloss and colour to the last- 

 It is usually sold in pieces about five yards long by four feet broad, and the price 



varies from Rl-8 to R2 per square yard Muga is less widely spread than 



eri, and the anuual outturn is probably less ; but there are no means of estimating its 

 amount. The outturn of the Sibsagar district is supposed to be 205 cwt. (280maunds) 

 of silk (only half the leased sum lands being assumed as actually under muga cultiva- 

 tion), that of Darrang is shown as 8 cwt. (11 maunds), and of Kamrup as 15 cwt.) 

 (20]maunds), though s Darrang"produces more than Kamrup ; but these estimates are 

 quite untrustworthy. Sibsagar is the great muga-growing district of the Assam 

 Valley ; next to that, the south-western portion of the Mangaldai subdivision, and 

 the western part of Kamrup to the south of the Brahmaputra, where the Rani mauza 

 especially is celebrated for supplying breeding cocoons to Upper Assam, Muga-breed- 

 ing is also carried on to a considerable extent in the closely-populated, tract in the 

 centre of the Kamrup district north of the Brahmaputra. There is a good deal of muga 

 cultivation in Lakhimpur, where the sum tree grows wild in great profusion, and the 

 worms are reared on a large scale in forest areas from which the undergrowth has been 

 cleared, the cultivators making their temporary homes in these spaces until the breed- 

 ing season is over. The more closely peopled mauzas of Nowgong also contribute 

 largely to the stock of muga in the province. The worm seems to be unknown in Sylhet 

 and Cachar, while the hill districts do not produce the trees on which it feeds. 



" An account of muga silk would not be complete without a few words on the two 

 varieties assumed by it when the worm is fed on the champa (or more properly ckapa) 

 and the mezankuri or adahuri (Tetranthera polyantha) . Champa silk seems to be 

 quite forgotten now. It is described as a very fine white silk, which used to be worn 

 only by the Ahom kings and their nobles. Mezankuri silk is still to be procured, 

 but with great difficulty. In 1881 there does not seem to have been a single piece ob- 

 tainable in Jorhat. One of the reasons alleged for this falling off is that the new rules 

 restricting clearances in the forests are unfavourable to the growth of the mezankuri 

 tree. This tree springs up spontaneously in abandoned clearances, and it is in this 

 early shrub-like stage that it is fit for the worms to feed on. In its second year the 

 worms fed on it give coarser silk ; in the third year the silk is hardly distinguishable 

 from the common muga. Thus the mature tree is quite out of the question, and as the 

 mezankuri is never cultivated, forest clearances were the only places where the breed- 

 ers could look for young trees. When fed on the mezankuri, the muga worm spins a 

 fine silk of almost pure white, about thrice as valuable as the common muga — in fact 

 the most costly of all the silks of Assam. The thread was selling at Hs. 24 the seer in 

 Jorhat in 1883. This silk is altogether an article of luxury. . 



" The ban muga, or the forest muga, is simply the common muga worm in its wild 

 state. The cocoons are not plentiful enough to be largely used, but the wild moth is 

 sometimes allowed (like the wild buffalo) to improve the strain of the domestic breed. 

 Female moths of the domesticated muga species, if left outside the house in the even- 

 ing, will be visited by any wild male moths that happen to be in the vicinity. The silk 

 of the ban muga is occasionally mixed with eri by the Cacharis." 



