The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-25 00:00:00

depends upon the general degree of success with which
the silkworms have been hatched and bred. From three
to five francs per quintal may be taken as including the
average rate.
So much for the production of the food of the silk-
worm. Let me now attempt some detail of the main
points of the process of breeding the insect itself.
According to the progress of the mulberry tree is fixed
the epoch at which the eggs of the silkworm, carefully
',reserved during the winter in folded cloth, are vivified.
In its minutiae, the process observed differs in different
districts, but the general mode of proceeding is the
same. The cloth containing the ova is first soaked, the
more easily to separate the eggs from their re.s..thig place,
the former are then scraped off—frequently in the Ar-
deche, by rubbing one portion of the texture against
the other—and heaped in a bssin into which clear water
is poured. This detaches the eggs from each other, the
rbor idcek eenx
expedient
no
tr claies
in so
some
ef osiers.ea sea
stele or spoiled ones floating to the surface. Sometimes
wine is poured over the good ones after they are taken
from the basis). The next process is drying the eggs,
usually taking about two days, spread either upon a
ready to be subjected to the warm temperature which
hatches them. To manage this part of the process the
adTohpetedegigs:
said, for the operator to go fairly to bed with the fra,
and hatch them by the natural heat of the body. Closets,
asarel haveiw
well warmed by stoves, are, however, more often re-
sorted to, and the eggs are ranged round in small boxes
upon shelves. The insects make their
appearance in
from three to five days, more or less, according to the de-
gles of heat kept up. The warmer the eggs have been
kept during the winter, the more readily they vivify in
spring. A common practice is to place sheets of paper,
pierced with
.numerous holes, over the eggs, as they
begin to show signs of life; through these holes the
worms crawl up. Leaves of the mulberry; or small
brandbeaor the tree, are laid upon the paper, and to
these the insects speedily attach themselves, beginning
from the very first to eat greedily. By the help of the
twigs in question, they are carried to the dales prepared
for them, in what I may properly call the breeding-room,
and the " education" begins. The claies do not always
consist of the split osiers I have described. In some of
the best establishments well-stretched sheets of canvas
are used instead. At first a small space of dale or shelf-
room only is required, but with each change of skin the
quantity must be enormously increased. A silkworm,
during its brief life of little more than a month, increases
is weight upwards of one thousand-fold, four distinct
skins bursting in the process, and being supplied by
wider and roomier integuments. We are now, there-
fore, to suppose that the little newly-hatched creatures
are distributed on their shelves, either fixed or immov-
able, in the breeding-room. The more easily to convey
a definite idea of the space and the quantity of food re-
quired, we shall suppose that the breeder intends to rear
the produce of five ounces of eggs—a quantity requiring
a large atelier and a very considerable stock of mulberry
leaves. The space at first allotted to the worms ought
to be from 36 to 40 square feet. It is of importance that
the creatures should not be crowded. The first day they
consume four meals of leaves, the whole consisting of
about 34lbs. of the substance, selected from the tenderest
and juciest shoots of the tree, and cut very small. A
space of six hours intervenes between the repasts, and
as a general rule the quantity of each is to be succes-
sively augmented. Tile number of worms supposed to
no now feeding is about 200,000, but great numbers die
off, even under the most careful superintendence. Those
who eat less than the average quantity become weakly,
do not increase in size, and soon perish. Generally
speaking, the worms devour their allowance of leaves in
an hour and a half, and then lie almost motionless till
the next meal. The second day the allowance is in-
creased by one-half—six pounds of leaves well cut up
being served out to the insect guests. The third day the
quantity is again doubled, that being one of the periods
of their life when the insects eat voraciously. All this
time it is to be noted that the attendants keep spreading
the insects out more and more, removing the sickly or
the dead, and watching the length of time the healthy
take to eat; since, if the meals are devoured with more
than average rapidity, a proportionately greater quan-
tity of leaves must be supplied, and less time allowed to
elapse between their repasts. The reader will thus have
a notion of the continued, harassing, fidgety species of
the work required. The neat light-handedness of
women renders them generally more fitting than men
for the task.