560 
EXTENT OF THE IMPORTATION OF SILK. 
ing entangled when the skein is taken off; 
but perhaps the Society will send her up a 
small model of the Italian Novi reel, which 
is most approved in the Company’s factories. 
In reply to some queries regarding the 
process of the w^orm itself, I have the plea- 
sure to add some particulars from which 
Miss Calder may, by comparison, estimate 
the value of the produce of the worms of 
Kamptee, which from her description appear 
to be of very different character ft-om those 
of Bengal. We have two descriptions of 
worms, the annual and the monthly one; 
of the first the worms are kept in a close 
vessel for a twelve-month, at their term of 
ripeness, they eat for forty-three days, 
they remain dormant one day, and then 
complete their spinning in two days. In 
fifteen days more they eat their way out, 
if not killed in the inside of the cocoon, 
by exposure either to the noon-day sun 
or to the heat of an oven ; on the same 
day that they emerge from the cocoon, they 
will, in twelve hours, lay on the average 400 
eggs, and they then die. One maund of 80 
sicca to the seer of these cocoons will yield 
about 3 seers of good silk in the skein. 
The other worms, called generally the 
small cocoons, which ripen almost every 
month during the year, in different parts of 
the country, are of very inferior quality. 
The egg hatches in eight days, the worm 
then eats for twenty-four days, remains 
dormant one day, completes its spinning in 
one day, and will emerge in eight days, if not 
destroyed as above-mentioned. In three 
hours after emerging, it lays 300 eggs on the 
average. One maund of eighty sicca weight 
to the seer, will yield on average about 2f 
seers of good silk in the skein. There will 
be produced at the same time, from this weight 
of cocoons, 25 chittacksof chassum, or waste 
silk, the remainder is dirt or dead cocoons. 
Should Miss Calder require further infor- 
mation regarding any stage of the production 
of raw silk, I shall be most happy to make 
my experience, or my services in enquiry, 
available to her, and I shall be more punctual, 
I hope, in doing so. 1 shall be very glad to 
see the result of her comparison of our co- 
coons with her own, as well as specimens of 
her future filature.” 
The most important documents, however, 
are the following. 
RAW SILK, FROM A PRINTED CO- 
PY FORWARDED TO THE AGRI- 
CULTURAL SOCIETY OF INDIA, 
BY MR. GEO. NORTON, OF MA- 
DRAS. 
“ The immense extent of the importation of 
this production from the Eastern part of the 
world, and the great probability that it will 
still largely increase, and enable the skill and 
exertions of our manufactures to make this 
country the mart of the world for silk, as it is 
for cotton manufacturers, are we think, suffi- 
cient reasons to draw strongly the attention of 
all those connected with our trade and pos- 
sessions beyond the Cape of Good Hope. 
We will first attempt, in the clearest man- 
ner we are able, to describe the climate best 
adapted for the cultivation of the worm,-— 
how such cultivation is practised, —and the 
aptest method of drawing from the cocoons or 
nuts, which the insects spin, sufficient fibres 
to form a thread. 
The climate best adapted for the cultivation 
of the worm, is the borders of a mountainous 
or high country, where the air is warm, yet 
temperate and regular. Thus, the best cul- 
tivated in Europe is in Piedmont, the 
Milanese, and the Tyrol ; which countries 
boraer on the Alps : and indeed the silk 
produced in all patts of the North of Italy, 
which are mountainous, is good , for there the 
sky is clear, and the air warm, yet temperate 
and pure. The worm cultivated in the val- 
leys, where the warmth is great, exudes a 
looser and more irregular fibre, and the 
thread formed from it becomes rather harsh 
and sticky. 
The manner of cultivation practised in 
Italy is as follows: — First, there are the 
growers of mulberry trees, who, when the 
trees have arrived at sufficient growth to allow 
of the leaves being plucked without injury to 
them, pluck andsell the leaves hy weight to the 
breeders of the worms : of which there are 
two sorts ; first, those who breed to sell the 
eggs which the worm produces, always re- 
serving a sufficient quantity to keep up the 
stock; next, those who purchase such eggs, 
which are also sold by weight, merely to feed 
the animal until it spins its nut (or cocoon as 
it is called) — which nut or cocoon, in order 
to destroy the worm within (which would 
otherwise break all the fibres it had spun in 
easing its way out, when in the course of its 
various transmutations it would be called by 
nature again to life and activity), is either 
baked or suffocated by steam. The latter is 
by far the better method ; for without great 
care in baking the fibres of the cocoons get 
burnt, which creates much waste. 
These last breeders sell the cocoons, by the 
weight, to those who draw the fibres from 
them to form the thread ; which is called 
reeling, or filaturing, the silk. This is per- 
formed in the following manner ; first, the 
cocoons ought to be always, and are so, in 
regular filatures, carefully sorted into the 
vaiious sizes of the fibre upon them ; then the 
quantity of cocoons intended to form the 
thread is put into a small bason of hot water, 
which enables the fibres to run freely from 
them : then the fibres from each of the said 
quantity of cocoons are passed through an 
eye in a small wire, extended above the bason 
of water, in order that in joining together they 
may receive a slight twist, which gives the 
thread an elasticity, and the greater such 
elasticity, the more valuable the silk. After 
that, they are fastened to a reel, which is 
not circular, but should be formed of four 
projecting sticks of wood, with even tops to 
them about one inch broad and four inches 
wide, with borders at each end to prevent the 
silk, in reeling, from slipping off ; and the 
extent of such projecting sticks should be 
such as to form a skein of about 30 inches 
