Some eight dayes after they have finished their Work, as many of the best Cases, as are to serve for seed, viz. the first done the hardest, the reddest and best coloured, must be chosen, and put a-part; and all diligence is to be used to winde off the silk with as much speed, as may be, especially if the Worms have nimbly dispatched their work.
Here he spends a good part of his Book, in giving very particular Instructions, concerning the way of winding off the silk, setting also down the form of the Oven and Instruments necessary for that work, which is the painfullest and nicest of all the rest.
Touching their Generation, he prescribeth that there be chosen as many male as female Cases (which are discerned by this, that the males are more pointed at both ends of the Cases, and the females more obtuse on the ends, and bigger-bellyed) and that care be had, that no Cases be taken, but such wherein the Worms are heard rolling; which done, and they being come forth in the form of Butterflies, having four wings, six feet, two horns, and two very black eyes, and put in a convenient place, the males fluttering with their wings, will joyn and couple with the females, after that these have first purged themselves of a kind of reddish humour by the fundament: in which posture they are to be left from Morning (which is the ordinary time of their coming forth) till evening, and then the females are to be gently pulled away, whereupon they will lay their eggs, having first let fall by the Fundament another humour, esteemed to proceed from the seed of the males; but the males are then thrown away as useless. He advertiseth, that if they be coupled longer than 9. or 10. hours, (which they will be, and that sometimes for 24. hours together, if they be let alone) either the female will receive very great hurt by it, or much seed will remain in her belly.
The seed at first coming out is very white, but within a day it becoms greenish, then red, at last by little and little gray, which colour it retains alwaies, the most coloured of an obscure gray, being the best; those grains which never quit their whiteness, having no fecundity in them.
Each female emits ordinarily some 300 grains, more or less, some of them not being able to render them all, and dying with them in their belly. One ounce of seed will require an hundred pair of Cases, of as many Males as Females.
Care must be taken, that no Rats, Mice, Ants, or other Vermin, nor any Hens, or Birds, come near the Seed, they being very greedy to eat them.
This is the substance of what is contained in this French Author, published at Paris on purpose to promote the Making of Silk there, as well as it is practised already in other parts of that Kingdom; which is represented here, to the end, that from this occasion the design, which the English Nation once did entertain of the increasing of Mulberry trees, and the Breeding of Silk-worms, for the Making of Silk within themselves, may be renewed, and that encouragement given by King James of Glorious memory for that purpose (witness that Letter which he directed to the Lords Lievtenants of the several shires of England) and seconded by his Most Excellent Majesty, that now is, be made use of, for the honour of England and Virginia, and the increase of wealth to the people thereof; especially since there is cause of hope, that a double Silk harvest may be made in one Summer in Virginia, without hindring in the least the Tobacco-Trade of that Countrey.