SILK PRODUCTION
According to traditions, not wholly trustworthy, eggs of the silk-worm were smuggled to India in the head-dress of a Chinese princess. Thence sericulture slowly made its way westward to Persia, Asia Minor, and the Mediterranean countries. Wild silk, a coarse but strong product, is grown in many of these countries, but mainly in China, where it forms an important export. The Chinese product is commercially known as "tussar" silk. Of the product of raw silk, about thirty-five million pounds, China yields about two-fifths, Japan and Italy each one-fifth. The remainder is grown in the Levant, Spain, and France.
Most of the raw silk of China is exported from Shanghai and Canton; that of Japan is shipped mainly from Yokohama. Among European countries Italy is the first producer of raw silk, and France the chief manufacturer. By the operation of a heavy tariff a considerable manufacture of silk textiles has grown up in the United States. New York City and Paterson, N.J., are the chief centres of the industry.
The southern part of the United States offers an ideal locality for sericulture. Various attempts at silk-worm breeding have failed from lack of training, but not on account of geographic conditions.
Flax.—The flax of commerce, the basis of linen cloth, is the bast or inner bark-fibre of an annual plant (Linum usitalissimum, i.e., most useful fibre), native probably to the Mediterranean basin. It ranks among the oldest known textiles. Bundles of unwrought fibre have been found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland, and linen cloth constituted a part of the sepulture wrappings of the ancient Egyptian dead.
Flax has a very wide range, thriving in the colder parts of Europe as well as in tropical Asia; it does equally well in the dry summers of California or the moist regions of the Mississippi Valley. The chief requisite is a firm soil that contains plenty of nutrition.
After the stalks have passed maturity they are pulled up by hand; "rippled," or deprived of their seeds and leaves; "retted," or moistened in soft water until the bast separates; "broken" and "scutched" by a machine which gets rid of the woody fibres; and finally the loosened bast fibre is "hetcheled" or combed in order to separate the long, or "line," threads from the "tow" or refuse.
Russia produces more than one-half the world's crop, but the finest and choicest is that known as Courtrai fibre, which is grown in Belgium. This is thought to be due to the quality of the water in the Lys River. A considerable amount of flax grown elsewhere in Europe is sent to this part of Belgium to be retted. Ireland and Germany produce considerable amounts, and a small quantity is grown in the United States.
The prepared flax is used in the manufacture of linen cloth, and the latter is almost exclusively used for table-cloths, napkins, shirt-bosoms, collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs. France is noted for the manufacture of linen lawns and cambrics, and Belfast, Ireland, for table-cloths and napkins. Nearly the whole linen product is consumed in the United States, Canada, and western Europe; indeed, linen is a mark of western civilization. Great Britain handles the greater part of the linen textiles.
Hemp.—The true hemp of commerce is the bast or inner bark of a plant, Cannabis sativa, belonging to the nettle order. It is an annual plant having a very wide range; it occurs in pretty nearly every country of North America, Europe, and Asia. In Europe the chief countries producing it for commercial uses are Russia, France, Italy, and Hungary; in the United States it is grown in California and the central Mississippi Valley. Russia produces the largest crop; Italy the finest quality of fibre, the best coming from the vicinity of Bologna.