CHAPTER II.
MANUFACTURE OF SILK BY THE SILKWORM.
We now come to the most important of all silk-spinning insects, the common silkworm, or caterpillar of the mulberry-tree moth. The labours of this insect were known and appreciated in other parts of the world long before we had tidings of its existence; so that the peasantry of other lands were clad in raiment which our kings would have been proud to wear. “When silk was so scarce in this country that James the First, while King of Scotland, was forced to beg of the Earl of Mar the loan of a pair of silk stockings to appear in before the English ambassador, enforcing his request with the cogent appeal, ‘for ye would not, sure, that your king should appear as a scrub before strangers;’ nay, long before this period, even prior to the time that silk was valued at its weight in gold at Rome, and the Emperor Aurelian refused his empress a robe of silk because of its dearness, the Chinese peasantry in some of the provinces, millions in number, were clothed with this material; and for some thousand years to the present time, it has been both there and in India (where a class whose occupation was to attend silkworms appears to have existed from time immemorial, being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books,) one of the chief objects of cultivation and manufacture. You will admit, therefore, that when nature
——Set to work millions of spinning worms,
That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk
To deck her sons,
she was conferring upon them a benefit scarcely inferior to that consequent upon the gift of wool to the fleecy race, or a fibrous rind to the flax or hemp plants; and that mankind is not under much less obligation to Pamphila, who, according to Aristotle, was the discoverer of the art of unwinding and weaving silk, than to the inventors of the spinning of those products.”
EGGS AND SILKWORMS IN THE FIRST AGE.
It is so common an amusement with young persons in this country to procure the eggs of silkworms, rear the insects, and watch their changes that numbers are acquainted with the growth, habits, and manner of spinning of these interesting creatures. Perhaps a sheet of paper is given to a little boy or girl, on which are a number of small specks, no bigger than pins’ heads: these specks, the child is told, are silkworms’ eggs, and if he keeps them dry during winter, and then places them in a sunny window in spring, he will get a number of caterpillars from them. Taking care to do this, the child is delighted some fine morning to see a few little dark coloured worms crawling about the paper, while others are just issuing from the eggs. Perhaps a difficulty now arises about their food. In warm countries the leaves of the mulberry-tree are ready for the insects as soon as they are hatched; but in England, unless the eggs are purposely kept back, by putting them in a cold place, the caterpillars come out before the mulberry-tree has put forth its leaves. A few tender leaves of the lettuce are therefore spread lightly over the young caterpillars, and upon these they mount, and at last begin to feed, after searching in vain for their natural food. But the worms do not thrive on this diet, and it is much better so to manage the eggs that they may be hatched when the young leaves of the mulberry are just opening. These form the best possible food in that tender state, and in order to economise it, the leaves should be cut in small pieces; because the caterpillars feed only on the edges, and thus great part of a leaf, when given to them whole, is entirely wasted.