REPORT ON THE DISEASES OF SILKWORMS IN INDIA 27 



The almost total failure of the November 1919 bund reared from 

 Piasbari nursery seed is very remarkable (Appendix II A, rearers 

 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9), and it is interesting to note that this was said to 

 be due to the issue of unexamined or badly examined seed owing to 

 some mistake on the part of the nursery staff. The seed must have 

 been extraordinarily bad to give such bad results, and it makes one 

 wonder if the seed issued was really nursery seed at all. With the 

 exception of this disastrous November bund, nursery seed seems to 

 have given satisfaction, the maximum loss under ordinary circums- 

 tances from this class of seed being generally estimated at from 

 i^ to -|- of the crop, while village seed occasionally gives a total 

 loss. On the whole then it seems to be the opinion of professional 

 rearers that pebrine is not increasing and that nursery examined 

 seed gives good results. As the results correspond with those of the 

 census it may be taken that they are reasonably accurate. 



In the course of tours made in the silk districts very little disease 

 of any sort has been found, and certainly no epidemic of pebrine has 

 been come across. In the course of a tour in Mysore, the Superin- 

 tendent of Sericulture there told me of a very interesting case of an 

 outbreak of pebrine that they had had which was traced to a mistake 

 having been made in packing some seed for distribution— the 

 rejected seed having been sent out by mistake for the passed seed. 

 In Kashmir one or two pebrinised worms were found in a lot reared 

 from French examined seed. On the whole neither my assistants 

 nor myself have found any appreciable amount of disease either in 

 Government nurseries or in village rearers' houses. 



Amount of loss from pebrine. Q.t is practically impossible to 

 form any idea of the actual losses that the rearers suffer from this 

 disease^ There are no records of any sort on the subject and one has 

 to rely on the opinions of rearers. Occasionally one hears of a total 

 loss such as that which seems to have occurred in Malda District in 

 the November bund of 1919. On questioning the rearers they say 

 that sometimes they lose the whole crop from disease but as a rule 

 the loss is about " 2 annas ". This of course refers to actual.deaths 

 among the caterpillars. There is, however, (a very serious loss in 

 silk in cocoons spun by heavily pebrinised worms and this must be 

 added to the total. On the whole T think it may be estimated with 

 all caution that the village rearer never gets more than 75 per cent, 

 of his silk crop. If he uses examined seed his losses from death 

 among the worms will probably be slight but his cocoons may not 

 be much richer in silk, owing to the underfeeding -of the worms. 

 There are so many factors, to consider in writing of the silk yield — 

 disease is only one of many/) In Bengal the rearers seem to recognize 

 that nursery seed gives better crops, and in Mysore very striking 



