Rapides gazette. (Alexandria, La.) 1869-187?, 1873-07-26
The Silk Worm.

THERE are many varieties of silk.
worms, but the one which is most largely
| cultivated is the Bombyr Mori, the com.
mon silk-worm of China. The moth is
nearly white, with bar of pale brown
across its wings, and to an Impractical
eye looks very much like many of our or.
binary moths. 1t lays its eggs on any
convenient surface, commonly on white
cloths provided for the purpose by its cul.
tiva'ors. The eggs are coated with a sort
Oh gum, which serves to keep them firm
~ In their place on the cloth until the
tlme OF their Matching. The moths live
out little WHILE. and hardly feed at all.
Inc caterpillars, as soon as they are
Matched, begin feeding on the leaves of
trees and plants, chiefly the leaves of the
white Mulberry, which are furnished
them chopped fine and placed in conven-
lent frames. The eggs of the moth are
very small, and the young caterpillsrs
are OF corresponding size. But their
growth is rapid and very peculiar. Dur
ing their growing period they shift their
SKINS several times, working themselves
out OF an old skin as soon as they are pro-
vlded with new one. The old skin is
always very hard, amounting to kind of
shell, while the new one Is quite soft ;
and so soon as the caterpillar has freed
himself from an Obdurate shell, and finds
himself with plant skin on his back, he
proceeds, by dint of much eating, to do a
Dit OF rapid growing, q proceeding in
which he is rudely checked by the harden
ing of the new skin in its turn into an I'M
yielding case. All this occupies but q
brief space of time, and the whole life of
the poor worm is only about eight weeks
long, while his glorified existence as a
moth covers even briefer period.
When the caterpillars are fully grown
they spin their cocoons of silk, making
for themselves little tomb about the size
and shape of a peanut, the females max
ing theirs pretty evenly oval, while those
made by the males have Ger trail depres-
sion very much like that between the
kernels of the peanut.
In spinning The silk worm makes a
thread of two fibers, and begins the CO.
coon by making its outside first, and
winding the inside closer and closer about
him until all is done, when he passes into
tis chrysalis state. Ii left to itself the
next seen Of the insect will be two or
three weeks later, when it will eat its way
out OF the cocoon and make its appearance
in the character of moth.
But in eating out of the cocoon, the
moth necessarily cuts right through the
fbers of the silk. running it for use in the
ordinary way, and rnining it altogether,
people thought, until late yesrs a way
to use the perforated cocoons has been
discovered. Of course the grower of silk.
worms must keep up his stock, to which
end he mu { allow a certain number of
the chrysalids to become moths, and to
eat their way out of their prison houses.
These he selects with care, taking an
equal number Of males and females. Put
these aside, he destroys the dormant life
of all the others, either by baking them in
an oven or by throwing them into boiling
water.
The next process is to reel the silk off
the cocoons-unwinding the coil made by
the wonderful little worm. The cocoons
are first soaked in warm water sufficiently
to soften the gum of which they are in
part composed. Then the fibers of several
cocoOns being united into one thread are
wound off on reel into hanks, twisted,
as we twist yarn, into a convenient bunch
and shipped from China to Europe or
America. That grown in Europe is SINH
larly handled, except that European in
genuity and skill have succeeded in i'm
proving the quality of the resultant hanks |
Of silk.-Hearh and Home.