Evening star., 1941-11-09
A. P. Photo.

II was at this time that some silk pro-
ducers in Kansas and Louisiana found
it profitable to raise eggs for the rest
of the world. The plague baffled every
one but Louis Pasteur. who at length dis
covered a cure involving painstaking Sc
lection of healthy insects for breeding.
All this procedure may sound far too
laborious for American labor TO under
take. But essentially silk culture is
household industry and the Agriculture
Department proved during experiments
early in this century that in the South
vast numbers of families are almost
ideally situated for raising silk, and are
apparently willing to do so, If market
for cocoons could be established.
II the United States should open
campaign to raise silk on big scale.
competent organization and generous
financing would be imperative. Orchards
should be planted, since the Oriental
mulberry leaf makes a better food than
the common American variety. And.
much more important, industry would
have to set up plants to reel threads
from the cocoons. Once this Is done,
the weaving industry already exists.
A reeling industry would require en-
tirely new machinery, and in this fact
may be found the catch. For competi-
ton would arise with the new but exist
ing industry which makes artificial silk
from coal and air" and other improb-
able substances.
Recognizing the momentum OF such
competition, Mr.. Keleher comedies it is
entirely possible that commercial silk
production here will remain what It is
nova vision. If so, he is content to
boost silkworm culture as hobby.
Ants Are Warriors
Bombyx mori is assuredly the aristo-
crat of all insects. The ant leads
more industrious life, but its races still
war among themselves, almost as If
they were human. The butterfly is more
handsome, but it bursts from cocoon
of the shoddiest material. The bee
caters to mans base hunger, not his
love of beauty in clothing and tapestry.
Besides, the bee stings.
The silkworm traces his productive
ancestry at least as far back as 2,640
years before Christ's birth, when
Chinese emperor's wife, Sizing, tended
worms with her own hands
China guarded its worms with such
an air of secrecy that Japan could not
discover the art of raising them until
the third century A. D. A princess
anxious to carry the industry into India
stole eggs and mulberry seed over the
border in her headdress. tradition says
Bombyx mori progressed to the West
ern world when two Persian monks
brought silkworm eggs to CONSTANT
nople concealed in hollow cane. That
was about $50 A. D., and from contents
of the bamboo tube were produced the
races of silkworm which stocked Europe
and Asia Minor for more than 1900
years. according to historians.
Many an American has sworn he
the silkworm. When a mania swept the
country in 1888 mulberry trees were
planted in every garden patch. In
Pennsylvania as much as 100000 for
seedlings changed hands in a single
Week
Lamenting such crazeS, the Depart
ment of Agriculture began scientific ex-
periments under a $4,000 appropriation
in 1884. Correspondents in many parts
of the country were set raising worms.
The most pressing problem, of reeling
silk from the cocoons, was tackled in
1902 when machines were imported, to-
gether with handsome French and Ital-
ian girls whose instruction of American
women proved that workers here could
quickly learn to create silken thread.
Into this scene in 1884 walked young
Mr.. Keleher, native of Washington,
whose first job was that OF office boy.
He recalls that the departments division
of entomology then had about seven
employees; now it is a vast bureau. A
youth with little formal schooling. he
soon was intent on making up for the
lack by study at night. Through COM
petitive examination he won the title
of expert sericulturist, and was assigned
to the worms.