Dec. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



RESTORATION OF THE SILKWORM. 219 



tlie labial orifices being smaller, the silk would of necessity be finer. 

 This, however, is not an argument in favour of the white mulberry, but 

 against the locality in which it is grown. Seeing, then, that the silk can- 

 not be coarser than Nature intended it to be, while it may be much 

 finer, the argument tends altogether to prove that great fineness of fibre 

 is a consequence of decreasing size in the worm, produced by increasing 

 debility of constitution. 



M. Boitard, a French writer on -the cultivation of silk and of the 

 mulberry-tree, informs us that the white mulberry is often tinged with 

 red, a statement which upholds and confirms my remark that the red 

 holds an intermediate place between the black and the white fruit. 



In 1858 the white mulberry appears in some quarters to have fallen 

 in estimation, and the Morus multicaulis was likewise, condemned, as it 

 was said, " because it produces so tew leaves, though they are larger, and 

 partly because those few are too soft and milky for the worm, yielding a 

 weak fibre." * 



This statement, however, unfortunately proved to be an egregious 

 blunder, the tree thus denounced being in reality not the Moms multi- 

 caulis, which, as the specific name points out, instead of having few 

 leaves of large size, has a multitude of branches thickly covered with a 

 moderate-sized leaf. The large-leaved tree is now named Morus cucul- 

 lata, from the leaf taking the form of a skull cap, and strange to say, 

 although pronounced to be worthless when supposed to be M. multicaulis, 

 was subsequently, by the same authority, and under the equally erro- 

 neous name of Morus sinensis, extensively cultivated as a first-Tate 

 silkworm diet. 



Whatever may be the value of M. multicaulis and M. cucullata in 

 their own native climates, they do not appear to have given much satis- 

 faction elsewhere, and certainly in a cold northern climate they can 

 scarcely be expected to do so ; at Mussooree, I regard them both as 

 trash, and although in Oudh, Dr. Bonavia found that B. mori and B* 

 sinensis both ate them readily enough, yet in the later stages of the worm 

 a leaf of greater substance was required. In such case I would recom- 

 mend the coarser leaf from the very beginning, for if the young worm 

 lacks sufficient nourishment in the first two stages of its growth, it will 

 be next to impossible, by any amount of subsequent good feeding, to 

 recover the ground thus lost. 



It is, I am convined, precisely because in the early stages the worms 

 have been fed upon chopped and thin watery leaves, that the constitu- 

 tion has been at length brought to the very extreme of weakness. 

 Starvation in childhood is surely not the best method of eventually pro- 

 ducing either a strong, healthy man, or any other animal . 



The climate, the tree, and the species of silkworm to be reared should 

 all, as much as possible, be adapted to each other ; whereas under the 



* Journ. Hort. Soc. of India, vol. x. part 2, p. 182. 



