50 REPORT ON THE DISEASES OP SILKWORMS IN INDIA 



(1870) records that the seed got from the district of the Basses- 

 Alpes did much worse in the plains of Gard and Ardeche than in 

 the mountainous parts of these departments where the climate was 

 similar to that in the Basses-Alpes. Geoghegan (1880) also quotes 

 from an account by Lieutenant Powlett of Jaffir Ali's silk-rearing 

 establishment at Gurdaspur in the Punjab — sometime about 1864 

 —the opinion of Jaffir Ali that " acclimatized eggs were far better 

 than hill raised, as the latter produced in the plains sickly worms." 

 The Deputy Director of Sericulture of Bengal in a conversation with 

 me has expressed the view that hill reared seed — and he has had 

 experience of it for several years — does not do so well in the plains 

 in the hot weather as plains seed. 



illj It is extremely difficult to devise really good experiments to test 

 the benefit of hill amelioration : there are so many varying factors. 

 I have endeavoured to test this point, but I am fully aware of 

 the faultiness of my experiments. Seed produced in Kalimpong 

 has been sent down to Berhampore every bund and reared along- 

 side of seed produced in the plains. Seed produced in Kalimpong 

 has been sent to the plains (Pusa) and reared in an infected cage 

 alongside of Pusa seed in a similarly infected cage, while a control of 

 the Kalimpong seed was reared in a similarly infected cage in Kalim- 

 pong. As will be seen from Experiment 21 the results of the ex- 

 periments in the infected cages were not in favour of hill reared seed.. 

 And the diagrams given in Appendix V shew that at least as far as 

 weight of silk is concerned the hill reared stock was not so good 

 as the plains acclimatized stock in some cases. In Appendix I 

 will be found the results as far as disease is concerned of hill seed 

 reared in the plains and it will be seen that in rearers' houses it 

 may pick up quite as much disease as plains stock. 



On the whole I cannot say that a case has been made out for hiir 

 amelioration as a whole. To reach any definite conclusion, however, 

 would need many years' experimenting — indeed all experiments on 

 silkworms should run for at least five years to be of real value, as 

 the worms are so susceptible to climate and food that a few experi- 

 ments cannot show absolutely definite results. There is, neverthe- 

 less, room, I believe, in each province for a small, cheaply-run hill 

 station where seed for the cold weather bunds could be reared during 

 the hot weather, where acclimatization experiments could be carried 

 on, and where further experiments in the resistance of worms es- 

 pecially to rot diseases might be tried. To launch out into a scheme 

 involving a big hill station would at present be folly. 



Do conditions in India make the disease specially danger- 

 ous or difficult to check ? We have reviewed above the source^ 

 of infection and the method of keeping pebrine in check, and we 



