The Colorado statesman., 1913-06-21
Is Fed by Great Destruction of
Life.
Silk for Millions of Wearers That 2oo,-
ooo,ooo,ooo Worms Die to Provide
They Live Only to Work.
Interesting Data.

Women who deck themselves out in
silks, and men, too, for silk enters into
their ties and socks and other gar
ments that some can afford to buy, as
well as into most of the things worn
by femininity, concern themselves
with the awful destruction of lift
that is necessary to permit their
vanity to have sway. About 10000.
100000 worms are killed every year
to make silk for use of the hosiery and
underwear manufacturers of the Uni.
ted-States alone in the manufacture OF
their products. This statement was
made by III. F. Hofer, a manufacturer
| OF Paterson, N. j., in an address at a
recent convention of the National AS
sociation of Hosiery and Underwear
Manufacturers, held in Philadelphia.
Mr.. Hofer presented figures to
show that the manufacturers consume
around 100000 pounds of silk annual.
ly. and that it requires 5000 cocoons
to make a pound. in other words,
5000 worms give up their lives to
produce each pound of the raw ma.
terial. He gave the number of the
worms that must die to give to the
world all the silk that is produced in
year as about 100000, 100000.
The silk worm, without a sex, is
a mere being destined to perform
functions of most unselfish manner
said Mr.. Hofer in his most interest
ing address. This worm knows moth,
ing but duties and obligations. 1t
does more work relatively than any
other creature in existence, because
from its first day of life until it's last
it is working uninterruptedly without
sleep or rest of any sort.
True enough, it's work might by
human beings be considered to be an
enviable occupation, since it consists
of eating and nothing else. In the six
weeks of life this little creature eats
all that is necessary to enable its
growing to more than a thousand
times its original size.
AT the first hour of life the total
weight of these 100000, 900, 900
amounts to about 100000 pounds, and
after about six weeks this lot of lit
tie creatures will have done away with
about 10000, 100000 pounds of mulber-
ry leaves furnished by about 10000
mulberry trees.
The growing of the worm is so fast
that it has to develop a new and more
elastic skin every week for the period
of five weeks. The time for the she'd
ding of one skin to the shedding of the
next is considered or called one stage
of life, and in the last stage the worm
has accumulated so much food and
transformed the same into a uniform
solution Of silky constituencies as it
deems sufficient to enable it to build a
net or house around itself, in which
it expects to remain unprotected from
the attacks of enemies while laying
dormant during it's transformation
from worm to a butterfly. In that
dormant state of chrysalis. when
imagining to be safe from all outside
enemies, within the artistically- built
house, the cocoon, it is mercilessly
murdered by men, wilfully destroyed
to satisfy the growing sense of vanity
of men, or, rather. women.
'Of course, the killing is necessary
If we are to derive the full benefit
from the cocoon, because If we allow
the chrysalis inside the cocoon to de-
velop into butterfly, the latter will
pierce the cocoon and destroy the
thread at so many places that it would
render the unwinding of the fine silk
filaments an impossibility. A very
small proportion of all these millions
of silk worms are enjoying the privi-
lege to grow to maturity, the butter
fly, the female one of which upon ma
turity and all within few hours time,
lays from to 600 eggs, which will
make up a new generation a year af-
terward.
THE time required for the transfer
nation from the full-grown worm into
butterfly varies somewhat md is in
fluenced by climatic conditions. but on
an average it does not take longer
than three weeks. Therefore, the
wholesale killing must be affected
within these three weeks. In lots of
hundreds of thousands are the cocoons
thrown into an especially constructed
oven and therein baked at a certain
rate of heat until all life is extin-
guished."
There was much more in Mr.. Ho-
fer's address that was particularly in
teresting to the men interested in the
manufacture of hosiery and underwear
who heard him.