116 NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
sharper extremities and a depression in the 
center. 
“ As soon as all ‘ mill ’ sounds have ceased the 
cocoons are carefully sorted. Those which are to 
be unwound for silk are treated in various ways: 
some growers dip them in hot water or steam 
them, others bake them in the oven. The object 
is to kill the worms and to soften the gum so that 
the threads can be wound. The threads range 
from six hundred to one thousand yards in 
length; sometimes an especially fine one will 
measure twelve hundred yards. More than half 
a mile in length—think of it! It takes about 
three thousand cocoons to produce one pound of 
raw silk. With good luck, the grower generally 
realizes about one hundred pounds of cocoons 
from an ounce of eggs. The raw silk is wound 
or reeled into skeins, and in this shape is ready to 
be sold to silk factories, or it may be worked up 
at home. It takes the fiber from ninety cocoons 
twisted together to make a thread of sewing silk. 
So you see how very, verjr fine must be the prod¬ 
uct produced by one little silkmaker. Thousands 
and thousands of silkworms lived, spun, and died 
to provide silk enough for this dress of Mabel’s. 
“ An interesting change, of course, takes place 
in the cocoons which are kept to replenish the 
silk grower’s stock. Shortly the inmate of the 
silken house turns into a hard little ringed chrys- 
