The Hawaiian gazette., 1906-01-05
SILK COCOONS RAISED IN
HONOLULU SUCCESSFULLY


The following correspondence relates
to silk cocoons raised aud silk produced
at the U. S. Experiment Station, which
was sent to the Department of Agrieul-
ture for report
United States Department of Agricul-
II ture, Bureau of Entomology, Wash
I ington, ID. G..
December 23, 1905.
|, Dear Mr.. Van Dine:
4 / am returning you this day by ac-
4 companying mail, the silk which has
, been reeled from your cocoons less one
skein which was used in making tests.
Please find enclosed, copy of letter
from Mr.. James Chittick, Secretary of
the Clifton Silk Mills, Weehawken, n.
!, j., relative to the qualities he found in
your silk.
|, So far az your part is concerned, the
actual raising of the cocoons was GER
tainly successful and you are to be
congratulated with the splendid show
ing which they make. The strength
and elasticity of the fibre and the very
economical Keeling results, could not be
bettered. Generally speaking, it re-
quires four pounds of dried cocoons to
ing; your cocoons produced one pound
of silk to about three pounds of
cocoons, which is equal to the most
economical results obtained in expert
, enced silk producing countries. The
weak places in the thread, causing
numerous breaks, was entirely the fault
: of our reelers. Hardness is due to the
nature of the cocoon employed. We
r were well aware of this feature before
sending you the eggs, but as the Sferiei
is a particularly hardy race and one
: that is safe to put into the hands of
our inexperienced people, we have laid
g aside commercial qualities to some ex-
, tent until higher degree of prof.
cheney should be attained by the pro-
' Queer and for this reason have distrib-
uted more eggs of the Sferici than of
I any other race. Commercially there is
|, no comparison of this race with China
and Japan silk. This feature is strong
, ly brought out in the next phase; gum
n miness. Ordinarily the silk from your
g. type of cocoon should have given a
e. loss of "a per cent. in weight in the
boiling off process due to the solubility
= of the gum. Actual tests showed loss
J. of 90 per cent. or per cent in excess
t of the ordinary. This is no doubt due
!. in great measure, if not entirely, to at
mospheric conditions, and seems to
" show that the Sferici race, as stated in
a previous letter, is not entirely suited
to Hawaii. Japan silk loses Is pei
- cent. and China silk 10 per cent. in the
boiling off.
, In the eggs to be sent you in thu
spring, ] will try and select those of ;
race which seems better suited to Ha
wall, though in this matter we must b.
guided mainly by experiment. judging
from results obtained in Hawaii be
tween the years 1887 and 1912, by us
ing cross between the Canton whit
and yellow and the so-called America
race, am inclined to believe that b.
all means cross race should now b
used and that the Canton white or vel
low be employed as basis.
Yours very truly,
L. o. HOWARD,
Chief of Bureau.
d. L. VAN DINE,
81 Exper, Sta. U. S. Dept. Agric.,
Honolulu, Hawaii.
SILK MANUFACTURERS REPORT
The Clifton Silk Mills, Postoffice, We,
hawken, n. j.
Town of Union, N. j., Dec. 16, 1905.
DR.. L. o. Howard, Bureau of Entomo
ogy, U. S. Dept. of Agricultur
Washington, d. c.
p Dear DR.. Howard: 1 beg to repol
, on the Hawaiian silk as follows:
The silk seems generally to hay
- good strength and elasticity. 1t seen
,n, in places to be rather Irregular
nd reeled, the result being that in I'll
O.. winding it breaks much oftener than
is, should.
H. This skein broke seventeen times
p. the winding, whereas silks that We a
Ia regularly handling would not brea
er, more than three times at the most; sti
ISIS it is only fair to say that as this skei
am had been opened and examined by
before putting on the winding, it mig
have Jared little better in this +
spect had it gone directly on the m
md chine.
Ia- There We're, however, scatter,
through it, weak places.
ct The size of the silk we make to
md about IA deniers.
To get II proper judgment we thrC
lips this into two skeins of organzine a
mt. boiled off one of the skeins. T
md boiled-off skein weighed 7S6 grail
and after boiling off weighed 8
for grains, loss of over 2S per cent. o
ex- per cent. of this might be account
uld for by soap and oil, and possibly the
lips may have been some atmospheric d
ference between the time it W
. weighed in the thrown state and in t
W time it was weighed in the boiled
state.
en,. AS we are returning to you the skt
oyy of organzine not boiled off and t
.des skein boiled off you can make yours
: no exact determinations in this resp'
eine from the former.
the We do not think that the soap a
,ines oil put in here will amount to mi
ORA than per cent, as previously state
well. On putting some of this boiled
are silk on the testing reel for examinati
0n M (in which state you can form SCUM,
rsnE opinion than you can before boil
n Of or. we find that it makes very f
, owp. organzine, being quite regular, a
Ihsse with good deal of elasticity, a
hers fairly brilliant.
1Oer The main criticism to be made of