The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-07-03
Life of the silkworn and the Spinning of
 the Cocoon Described.

| good deal of attention during the short l time when it brings profit, the interest
 has died out, and it Is now carried on
 only among a few. Mrs. N. w. c. Holt of Winchester is one of these. She has made silk culture one of her amuse-
 ments, and devotes considerable time to the study of silkworms and other tn-
 sects. She is an enthusiastic horticul-
 turist, and has one of the prettiest flow CT and fruit gardens that one could
 wish to see. She is also great lover of the little birds that come to this gar den to be her guests. Don't let us stay here too long, or they will abandon their nests," she sometimes says while showing a friend around the garden, and she hurriedly leads the way to an- other part of the garden, where she calls ones attention to the various in sects that are found in her flower beds
 or on her fruit trees.
 Mrs. Holt tells an interesting story as to how she became interested in the silkworm and how she first secured the eggs many years ago. She will then give a detailed account of the process of the matching, feeding, keeping, grow ing and spinning of the Bombyx mori The worms feed only on fresh, green mulberry leaves. When the mulberry tree begins to bud she removes the eggs from large tin box in which they are
 kept on white and clean linen cloths,
 and exposes them to moderate sun or
 stove heat until they are matched,
 From each egg issues little worm
 not more than an eighth of an inch
 Ia1e n6 with ohnrt h11rIy
 hairs. Eggs cannot be kept more than
 one year, and must not be exposed to
 heat during the dead months, as they
 would hatch, and there would not be
 anything to feed the little insects on.
 The eggs are of a gray color and about
 the size of an ordinary pinhead. In the
 spring Mrs. Holt keeps them in the ice
 chest, but so that no humidity can
 reach them, and even there few had
 matched the other day.
 As soon as the eggs are matched she
 removes the worms very carefully with
 soft small brush and puts about a
 dozen on each of the mulberry leaves,
 which have been picked about twenty
 four hours, and which are only half
 grown Some Of them, indeed. are
 merely buds. Born hungry, the little
 creatures begin to eat immediately, and
 will consume a large amount Of food
 When old enough to crawl around they
 will spread and eat only on the edges
 Sometimes the leaves are chopped in
 order to make many edges Mrs. Holt
 has quite large pasteboard cover
 about an inch and a half deep, in which
 she keeps the insects, together with
 their food, through their several stages of early life. and until 1t is nearly time for them to spin. She says that they
 behave very well and do not go outside
 their little home, although there is real ly nothing to prevent them. During
 the first part of the worms life it grows
 fast-so fast, indeed, that the skin does
 not possess sufficient elasticity to allow
 of such rapid growth, and bursts, some
 times as early as the fifth or sixth day.
 When this crisis begins the worm loses
 it's appetite; its skin grows shiny, and it
 usually wande's to some unencumbered spot, such as tfe edge of the box where
 it may shed its skin in quiet. With the
 ordinary race this shedding of the skin takes place four times It sometimes happens in the last mott that the worm dies Of course the rapid growth of the worms is due to their ravenous appe- tite, and if left to themselves, in the ! limited space in the box, they would soon be buried in their own tilt. To avoid this, Mrs. Holt covers them up with piece of blank perforated paper, on top of which she spreads supply of fresh mulberry leaves. All the worms will sooner or later creep through the holes to reach the fresh food which they soon detect and thus clear them selves of the tilt This is repeated as often as it is deemed necessary; gene rally it is done after each mott and once or twice between.
 Having cast its fourth skin, the worm
 is fed only moderately at first as it is apt to overeat itself. After that the meals should be plentiful, as it is at this time that the worm fills its silk ducts, and if deprived of full supply of food it will make poor and feeble
 cocoon. At the close of this fourth stage of the insects life it loses it's ap- petite and finally ceases entirely to eat, and then begins to throw out a thread of silk, thereby saying as much as, ''Pm ready to build my cocoon" Mrs. Holt is very fond of observing the pro- cess of spinning, and often gives the in- sect a chance to work where she can watch it. The silkworm, however, is
 not inclined to treat spectators very courteously, but will work within closed walls as soon as they can be con- structed. One of Mrs. Holt's worms has spun it's cocoon in small wineglass,
 which was put, inverted, over the worm at the proper time. In the middle of the glass was spun cross-work of ex-
 tremely fine and white silk threads,
 serving to support the cocoon, which is
 located in the very center of that beau | tiful translucent bed.
 | The cocoon is a pod about the same | size, shape and color as a well-shaped
 peanut; indeed, so much like it that
 only g. close inspection will disclose
 which is which. The silk is so neatly
 laid on the inside that it can be un-
 twined without the slightest difficulty,
 after the moth has been removed. In | removing the moth the shell on the CO., icoon is softened by steam or boiling