Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1891 — THE SILK INDUSTRY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SILK INDUSTRY.

SINGULAR ORIGIN OF AN IMPORTANT MANUFACTURE. ——rrr Careof the Worms—Unwinding theA'ocoon*—Enormous Prices Paid in Early limes lor tbe Fabric Larva and Moth An Exhibition of the Finished Product. 7 About the bilk Worm. The credit of originating the silk industry is due to a woman. About 4,500 years age, the Empress Si-Ling-Chi was passing an artificial pond in the palace grounds, when she perceived, lying in the water, certain cocoons of a bright yellow color, from which pretty threads floated away on the surface of the water. She bade one of her maids stoop and gather up the threads, when, to her astonishment, they unwound from the co oons. The process continued, the bright yellow strands were wound round a stick until the cocoons were exhausted, and thus was begun what, next to teagrowing, proved to be the most important industry of the Chinese Empire.

The incident led to the prosecution of experiments the threads were spun and woven, and gorgeous fabrics, such as till then the wor d had n v< soen, soon adorned the I’rlucees and her maids of honor. For her discovery she was held

In tho highest esteem; she was enrolled aknong the Chinese goddesses under the title of Sienthsau, “the fir. t who raised silkworms," and to the present day Is the patron deity of all silk-worm growers and silk-workers Understanding the importance of

their newly di; covered manufacture the Chinese made an effort to keep it a secret and derive a benefit from the export of silk, without allowing others to share in the knowledge of the manner in which ft was made. Tho frontiers were guarded. It was made a crime punishable by death to carry either silk worms, their eggs, or cocoons out of the empire. The silk was only exported, and for twenty centuries the Chineses njoyed a nunopoiyof the silk manufacture trade About 530 A. P. a couple of monkish missionaries, In the vourse of the r wander ngs, crossed the Chinese frontier. They were kindly received, and for some, years Abode in a city in the South of China There t’ ey learned the secret of the silk manufacture, and on their return determined to convey their knowledge and the means of spreading the industry to Europe. Fach prepared a hollow cone as a walking, staff, and fil-ed the hollow with silkworm eggs. Thu se they smuggled across the frontier, and alter many weeks of Weary travel finally reached Constantinople, and were admitted o the pr iscnce of Emperor Justinian. To him they rotated the marvelous story and presented tfreir treasure Under the instructions of the monks, who had witnessed the methods practiced by iho Chinese, the eggs wore placed uu-ier favorable evndiVons, the worms reared and the first ctrcoons e. er seen in Europe were spun ttrto thread. From this humbe start, says the Gtobc-Dnnocr<if, tho silk industry of Europe began. It was destined to /each Mighty proportions and in time t&'be so aided by machinery and mechanical devices of various descriptions as

scarcely to be recognizable by the originators, In certain essentia s the si.k industry is, of course, practically today what it was in the time of Justinian, or for that matter in the time of the Empress Si-Ling-(hi, but the use of ■machinery for unwinding the cocoons and for spinning the thread has practically placed the business under new conditions. Meantime, however, the Chinese have kept on in the same way without the slightest improvement on the methods of 4,000 years ago, and in a Chinese village of the present day men and women may be seen reeling off threads from the cocoons just as their ancestors did in the time of Christ. It is an industry which can be followed anywhere, and in the humblest Chinese dwellings, in the boat houses along the rivers, in the alleys which in every direction branch out from the main streets of any Chinese city, the silk reeler and his primitive apparatus may be seen. Any one, however, who, from the fact that the work is done by ignorant people, comes to the conclusion that a fortune is easily made by raising silkworms, labors under a serious mistake. There are few industries in which chance plays so large a part, or which require

such earnest and constant attention of the manipulator. The eggs are uncertain in hatching, the worms require almost continual attention, both as to their food, temperature and light. A sudden draught may destroy the owner’s hope of a crop. Even the cocoons must be looked after, for if they are killed too soon the total amount of silk will not have been deposited by the Inmate, while if left too long the worms burst through their covering and spoil the product. The insects are subject to all sorts of diseases, innumerable parasites feed upon them and impair their health, agid even after the cocoons are prepared for the winter improper treatment may subject the grower to a heavy loss. The silkworm is commonly spoken of as though there were but one kind. As a fact, every caterpillar produces silk when spinning its cocoon. There are twenty-nine varieties of worm which produce an excellent article of silk, but only three or four are raised exclusively for this product, and of those one is best in China, while another is better adapted to the ci mate of India, still ano her fares best In Asia Minor, and another in Europe The eggs of the best kind, the Chinese worm, are exceedingly minute, about 100,000 to the ounce, and the caterpillar when first hatched is less than a quarter of an inch in length. The insect lives from forty-five to fifty-three days, and increases In a month to a length sometimes exceeding three inches and a weight 9,500 times that at hatching. He eats-incessantly, save when throwing off the old skin, when he desists for a day or so, only to begin with fresh vigor, and to make a marvelous increase in she within a few hours after the skin is shed. The best food is the leaf of the

white mulberry, bnt in default of this, other leaves are greedily eaten, and the worm will thrive on the leaves of the black mulberry, or the osage orange, or even of the lettuce. The disad-

vantage of using these, however, is the fact that they produce a poor quality of bilk, and wherever silk cul|pre is to be practiced with the hope of profit, the white mulberry should be previously

I cultivated. Seven hundred and thirtynine pounds of leaves are required to make seventy pounds of cocoons, and the greatest care is needed in feeding the worms. The leaves must be chopped and evenly distributed throughout the trays, otherwise the worms will be unequally fed. The products of two hatchings, unless of exactly the same size, must be kept apart, or the smaller worms will starve. After eight weeks of eating, the worm reouires four or live days to spin his cocoon, and in two or three weeks will emerge a perfect moth. Both as worm and moth, however, he is sluggk-h in the extreme, the worms seldom moving from the trays in which they are placed, and the moths rarely attempting flight They lay their eggs upon the cloth placed to receive them, and die in a few hours, taking no nourishment after reaching the moth or perfect state. Only those insects designed to propagate their kind are allowed to come to perfection, for as so >n as the spinning ceases, which is determined by the absence of sound from within the cocoon, a small instrument having been devised for the purpose of ascertaining if the worm is still*' at work, the cocoons are stifled or placed in hot water in order to kill!the insects and prevent further development. Hi Mount Lebanon, where the s-tlk manufactures are extensive, the cocoons are frequently crushed with a mallet; but the general impression is that by thi process the silk is injured. Both in China and India the insects are killed with boiling water, which is believed to do its work effectually, without in the least harming the precious covering. After f tilling the cocoons they are loaded into trays or baskets, and transported to the reclers, who begin operations by stripping the cocoon of its delicate flo sy covering, which then becomes “waste” or rejected silk. The cocoons are then placed in water and stirred with a carefully trimmed birth red, which is lifted from time to time to ascertain if any threads are adhering to it. As soon as one is found it is carefully traced to its cocoon, another is picked out and joined to it, and when four or five are thus collected the combined thread is placed upon a reel which is slowly turned and the threads unwound from the original package. Much care is required at this part of the operation, for the threads are of unequal length, and, besides, are frequently broken, so as soon as one runs out or breaks another is found and joined at as nearly as possible the same point. The reel must bo far enough from the pan containing the cocoons to allow the thread to dry in transit, and the tediousness of the process may be judged from

the fact that tho threads are often from COO to 1,000 feet in length, and one pound of cocoons ought to give a combined thread about 528,000 feet long. The process of raising silkworms is t odious from beginning to end, as may be judged from the fact that the product of 1,600 worms is required to make a single pound of merchantab'e silk. The strands thus made into thread are passed on to the weaver and manufactured into the delicate fabrics which delight the eyes and gladden the hearts alike of pagan and Christian belles. At this point of manufacture, however, when the product passes into the loom, adulterations and frauds become possible. It is impossible to adulterate tho thread, but when the thread becomes combined with many thousands of others to make cloth frauds are frequently practiced. In few lines of dry goods is ■ adulteration more frequently practiced than In silks, a fact which has boon , caused by the demand for cheap yet, showy goods, for in this country the servant must look as well as the million- , al re’s daughter; tho woman who scrubs, the front steps is as ambitious, so far as dress is concerned, as the woman who sits in tho parlor. There being a demand, therefore, for tho greatest possible show at the least possible price, metallic dyes came into use, and also tho practice of weighing tho yarn, especially that which into the manti--facture of black silk tassels and fringes, and to such an extent is this adulteration practiced that oftentimes these goods are, in weight, two-thirds dye and one-third cloth. Aside from C hina, where silk has always been made in abundance, silk culture is an important branch of industry in Palestine, in Syria, particularly in the Lebanon Range, where both Christians and Mohammedans work side by side in the manufacturo and realize well on their labors. It is manufactured with I rofit in Turkey and Greece, and also in Italy. In San h'emo and Genoa, in Naples, and other todtm. on the western coast of the peninsula, whole streets are given up to silk-workers, aud picturesque spectacles are presented by these people with their spinning wheels and looms, their trays and cocoons, and the huge baskets of leaves brought in from the surrounding mulberry plantations for the sustenance of their stock in trade. Largely cultivated in Spain, Portugal and the South of France, the attempts which have been made in England and Germany have not realized the success hoped for them by the projectors. The climate of the north of Europe is not sufficiently warm, the changes are too great, the proper food for the worm is not always to be found, and the quality of the silk depends in no small degree upon the proper leaf 'urnished for the food. The quantity of silk annually produced is almost Incredibly great There are every year imported into England over 8,000,000 pounds of raw silk, over 4,000,000 pounds of “waste,” and upward of 100,000 pounds of various grades of thread, a total of more than 12,000,000 pounds a year, to say nothing of silk goods already manufactured, exceeding

In value 360,000.000. Nor doos this represent more than the consumption of a single nation, and it is estimated that the total annual consumption of the world exceeds 100,000,000 pounds a year. Attempts have been made to raise the worm in the United States, but not with marked success. Before the revolutionary war the silkworm was introduced into Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, but the industry died out completely during the revolution, and has not been resumed to any considerable extent. But the silk manufactures of this country form an important part of its business. By the census of 1880, it appeared that there were 332 factories with a capital of $19,125,300, employing 30,000 hands, and turningout in the pre-

ceding year 334,519,723 worth of goods. The days of the excessive costliness of shk have gone by, and the probability is that in the next few years large additions will be made to the silk-producing area of the world. Southern California, many parts of the Southern States, the West Indies, Mexico, Central America, the northern part of South America and large districts in Africa are excellently well suited to the growth and development of the worm, as well as the mulberry on which it feeds, and in not a few localities arrangements are now being made, both in this and other countries, by planting mulberry groves, to prepare for silk culture.

THE COCOON—LARVA ARV AND MOTH.

TTTBfKISH HAT OT KILLING THE CHRYSALIS

UNWINDING THE COCOONS IN A CHINESE VILLAGE.

AN EXHIBITION OF THE FINISHED PRODUCT.

CHINESE SPINNERS OFF DUTT.