Fig. 220.—Silk-winding Establishment.
Let us suppose that it is wished now to make up a brin, or staple, by uniting together the ends of five cocoons. She chooses five ends in the mass, makes of these a bundle, and introduces it into the hole of a filière. She makes two staples (brins) at once, one on her right, the other on her left hand. She then brings them together, she crosses them, rolls them, and twists them, the one on the other, several times; after which, she separates them from above and keeps them well apart, making each of them pass into a hook at a distance, from which they are going to twist round into a hank, separately, on a wheel. The two threads thus twisted are drawn close together, compressed, and become one, getting round by rolling on each other, and being kept in continual motion, drawn out as they are by the rapid motion of the wheel.
The difficulty which the emptying the cocoon of its silk thread presents, makes us understand what difficulties those manufacturers must have met with who have lately attempted to extract from the stalks of mulberry leaves a sort of silk. We will enter into no details of the attempts which have been made to accomplish this object in our time, attempts which have, however, been crowned with no success whatever. We will confine ourselves to reminding the reader that these attempts are far from being of recent origination, since they date back to as far as Olivier de Serres, the father of French sericulture.
In a little work published by Olivier de Serres, in 1603, under the title of Cueillette de la Soie, "The Gathering of Silk," we find a memoir entitled: La second richesse du mûrier, qui se trouve en son escorce, pour en faire des toiles de toute sorte, non moins utile que la soie provenant d'icelui, "The second wealth of the mulberry tree which is found in its bark, how to make of it cloth of all sorts, not less useful than the silk derived from this tree." Olivier de Serres proves in this memoir that the second bark, or liber, of the mulberry tree contains a fibre capable of replacing hemp or flax, and he describes the processes by which this may be obtained. The processes which had been proposed by Olivier de Serres in 1603, were resumed in the Cévennes a dozen years ago by M. Duponchel on the one hand, and on the other by M. Cabanis, [64] who operated on the bark instead of taking the whole of the wood of the mulberry tree. But none of these attempts have given any good results up to the present moment.
The various diseases which for the last fifteen years have been so fatal to the mulberry silkworm, have suggested the idea of acclimatis ing in Europe other silk-producing Bombyces, if not with the view of superseding, at least as auxiliaries to the mulberry species. The genus Attacus has furnished these auxiliaries. Among the species which have, in this respect, the greatest claims to our attention, we must place in the first rank those which feed upon the leaves of the oak tree. Indeed, the trees which can be made use of for their cultivation are very numerous in Europe, and, moreover, the silk produced by these worms appears to possess superior qualities.
There are three oak-feeding species of the genus Attacus. They are Yama-Maï, Pernyi, and Mylitta.