The Story of Silk

by Sara Ware Bassett

"It is now dry weather, and as this is the best time to reel silk we are working very hard," explained Henri as they went along. "Every machine we have is running overtime. But before we inspect the reels themselves suppose we see how the cocoons are soaked and made ready. The important thing is to get the gum which the silkworm has blended with the silk out of it, and for this purpose we use soft water, having found that it loosens the filament better than anything else. That is what they are doing here. They begin by raising the water to the boiling point, and afterward reduce its temperature by means of cold water if they find it necessary. Care must be taken to submerge each cocoon evenly so that its entire surface will be covered; otherwise one end will be softened and the other end remain hard, in which case it cannot be reeled off."

"But why do the girls stir the cocoons with those whisks of peeled birch?" inquired Pierre curiously. "What are they trying to do?"

"The stirring frees the ends of the filaments, and the brush of twigs serves to collect them," answered Henri. "When the ends have been caught in this way they are passed on to the reeler; but if after trying this method the girls find the ends do not free themselves they put such cocoons into a different temperature of water, or else toss them out entirely and leave them to the employees who handle the lots that require special treatment. They cannot stop here to fuss with cocoons that fail to wind off readily; not only would such troublesome ones retard the work, but they would be likely to snarl the others. Frequently we find cocoons with uneven places in the thread, spots where the silkworm has been interrupted in its spinning and stopped, afterward going on with its work and making a lump or knob where the filament has been joined. Such cocoons wind badly, as you can well imagine, and they, too, cannot be reeled with the general lot."

"I notice those boys are taking the empty cocoons out of the tanks after the silk has been reeled from them. Is it necessary?"

"Yes. We never allow the discarded cocoons, or shells as we call them, to stand in the water with those that are soaking, because they not only spoil the sheen of the silk on the unreeled cocoons but discolor it," Henri replied. "Now let us watch the reeling. Shall we?"

The boys turned toward the whirling machinery.

"I had no idea they reeled so fast," declared Pierre, speaking loudly so his companion could hear.

Fascinated he stood watching the flying threads pass over the glass rods.

"The speed of the reels can be regulated, of course," answered Henri. "It is not often, though, that the filament snaps because the reel is moving too fast. When the thread does break it is more frequently because the regular motion of the machinery wears it until it parts. This cannot always be avoided. All filatures count on some loss by winding. But the percentage in a modernly equipped filature is very small. We use the glass rods to prevent the thread from being caught or roughened. The process of winding cocoons has been so carefully studied that now our French reelers can turn off silk of fifteen or twenty fibres and lose only one or two per cent. of it by waste. In Turkey the loss runs as high as six or eight per cent.; in Syria it is fifteen or twenty per cent.; and in other countries where the people have less mechanical skill the rate of loss is much higher. Successful silk reeling is a matter of good machinery, practice, and deftness. An experienced reeler knows his business too well to waste material."