230 ON SILK MANUFACTURE IN THE EXHIBITION. 



bombyx Mori ! It is only recently that Dr. Forgemolle and the Countess 

 Corneillan have succeeded in spinning from these cocoons. The silk of 

 the bombyx Miletta and Pernyi, which is reared in India under the name 

 of Tussah silk, is beginning to be thrown with some success in England. 

 In the India department of the Exhibition are some goods manufactured 

 from this silk, which are very fine in texture, but being woven from the 

 raw material, they do not take the dye well, and cannot bear comparison 

 with ours of the bombyx Mori. 



" 3rd. Others have entered on a more philosophical path, and strive 

 to ascertain and to overcome the causes of the evil from which our cul- 

 tivators of the South suffer so greatly. Some have conjectured that they 

 may be traced to an affection of the mulberry tree ; and have, therefore, 

 sought our more vigorous varieties (such as the ungrafted or stock mul- 

 berry), or by sundry processes applying to the tainted trees what have 

 succeeded with the vine. On the other hand, there are those who as- 

 cribe the evil to the weakening of our varieties of the silkworm, and are 

 prepared to prove, on good authority, that in our processes of ' educa- 

 tion' and reproduction we have forced and violated the economy of 

 nature ; and that in our ' magnanieres] or silk breeding-houses, 

 which are too confined and close, we have produced insects so short- 

 lived and delicate, that they cannot resist the epidemic so well as the 

 rustic races hatched from larger eggs. By way of illustration they show 

 us sundry varieties of the worm imported from countries where they are 

 ' educated' in a manner more in conformity with natural laws, but pro- 

 ducing in our confined ' magnanieres ' smaller and still smaller eggs from 

 generation to generation, and whose duration of life is proportionately 

 curtailed. We will not venture a definite opinion on either of these hy- 

 potheses, as there are serious considerations affecting both which require 

 to be carefully weighed. By producing larger mulberry leaves we have 

 evidently impoverished the quality of the nourishment necessary to the 

 healthy development of the silkworm, and render the trees themselves 

 more delicate. In short, as well from this cause as from overheating 

 and overfeeding this insect on unsubstantial food, we have rendered it 

 feeble, and quite unable to resist infection. Of all this there can be no 

 doubt. 



" Insects, like our larger domestic animals, and like man himself, are 

 subject to great natural laws. Agriculturists know well that mild, moist, 

 and temperate climate produce races of silkworms with fine skin and 

 hair ; but are not ignorant of the fact that a secluded life and rich nou- 

 rishment produce also analogous effects and precocious animals ; they 

 know, therefore, that the latter condition is not likely to produce rustic 

 races, vigorous and able to resist the morbid influences of rigorous cli- 

 mates. Medical men know well that epidemics are more serious when 

 people are congregated together than when they are isolated. Howeve* 

 this may be, we cannot too much recommend visitors to the Internationa' 

 Exhibition '.o examine the case in which M. Duseigneur, the ardent 



