Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-07-16

eggs do not hatch until the next sum-
mer, and can meanwhile be sent
around the world. The sale Of grain
or seed as the eggs are also called, IS
Of itself q busineas, for it brings as
much as $4 per ounce, tenfold the
price years ago before an epidemic
swept through the silk world. Each
moth laws from four hundred to seven
hundred eggs, but it takes over six
hundred thousand to make a pound.
In obtaining eggs for breeding, the
grower usually places the moths on
cloths in q dark warm room. where
they contentedly lay their eggs and
die. In tropical countries, as south
ern China and India, the eggs hatch
by natural heat; in others, artificial
warmth is necessary; and in old
times hot beds were used, or the eggs
were carried about by women in
little bags in their bosoms. The CARE
full grower makes ready for the
Matching by providing lattlced trays
or bundles of twigs, about which the
food Of finely chopped mulberry
leaves is distributed The tiny worm
at first eats two meals a day; at the
end of five days he casts his first skin,
on the ninth day his second; again.
on the fifteenth, twenty second, and
thirty second days he ''moults," be
coming torpid, and exchanging old
skin for new. Like his fellow~worm,
man, he has ''seven ages" the sixth,
when he has attained the mature age
of thirty-two days, is the spinning,
the last the breeding period. At the
approach of the spinning age the
worms from a single ounce of eggs
(nearly 10000 eggs will have requlr-
ed over /, 200 pounds of leaves, and
will need about 1874 square feet space
for their homes.
Each days Matching is kept to~
gether, lest the older eat up the food
of the weaker brethren, and every
care must be taken to prevent the
growth of the minute famous which
makes ''silk worms rot" and to ward
off other diseases. In 1857 Europe
was swept of much of it's silken
wealth by one Of those parasitic dis
eases, and one of Pasteur's early tri~
umphs was in discovering its nature.
The worm is conservative, and
never attempts to move from his place
until it is time to begin spinning. He
then becomes distended with the silk
iuice.and is semi-transparent,l like ripe
yellow plum, and can presently be
observed lifting his head and looking
about for 3. good site for his cocoon
building, which his been furnished
by the cocoon grower in arches of
twigs or lattice work Some of the
worms are lazy, and the twig has to
be applied. The spinner. with careful
forecast, adjusts his body in the be st
position for the cocoon and colu-
mences to throw the floss that forms
It's outer coating.
The material of the silk is a gum my
secretion 10 sericteria, two large
glands along each side of the body,
terminating each in spinneret in the
mouth; each fiber of the thread proves
on microscopic examination to be
double, one stand coming from each
spinneret. What the angler prizes as
''silk~worna gut" is this sericterium
soaked in vinegar, stretched and dried
in the sun. The worm closes himself
in tighter and tighter, the interior
thread being the finer; he fixes his
body in place with his hooked feet,
and throws his head here and there
as he spins.
The thread is sometimes /, 800 feet
long without break; good cocoons
should yield 800 yards; it takes at
least 2, 500 worms to raise pound of
silk. Within five or six days the
spinningis completed, and the moth
presently makes preparation to en-
erge, by the hell of another seere-
ton, which softens or dissolves the
end Of the cocoon. Since in piercing
the cocoon, the worm breaks the con-
tinuity of the thread, it is usually
killed just before this stage by expes-
ing the cocoons to the sun where the
temperature is above SO degrees, or by
baking, steaming, or otherwise heat
ing them carefully, SO that the fiber is
not gummed together by the heat.
The following is from a late French
paper:
TT is we'll known that the Amer
cans are very practical people, even
in their religion. One of them has
Just invented a burglar-proof safe,
which, when tempered with, sudden~
ly extends a powerful pair of tongs
or grippers, which seize the malefac-
tor and hold him in firm embrace.
There is nothing extraordinary new
in all this, but there is something
further. Nearly always, safes that
are likely to be visited by burglars
are in buildings unoccupied during
tina night, and it is only the next
morning that the captured rebber is
carefully released from the trap to be
duly imprisoned. This;is. of course, is
time lost, which the religious inven-
tor desires to utilize. He has, there
fore, had prepared by an eloquent
preacher very long and remarkably
forcible sermon, in which the rights
of property, the disgrace of stealing,
and the dangers attendant on both in
this world and the next, are set forth
in the most touching language This
sermon, stored IN a photograph, is
set off at the same moment that the