Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/691

Rh suddenly appears upon the outside of the body in the form of a white powder. Each grain of this powder, falling upon a silk-worm, plants the seed of this formidable mushroom, the ravages of which will destroy all the worms of a rearing-chamber in a few hours. Happily, science has found the means of killing these seeds, and of completely disinfecting the locality. At the very moment when this victory was announced, another yet more terrible scourge, the pébrine, appeared. The muscardine caused isolated disaster; it had never been so wide-spread as seriously to injure the general business. Not so this other



malady. It is a true epidemic, which attacks life at its very source in an inexplicable fashion. It is a pestilence like the cholera. Under the influence of this scourge, the chambers of the silk-worm no longer thrive; most of the worms die without producing silk. Those that survive as butterflies give infected eggs, and the next generation is worse than the first. To get healthy eggs, we had to go to the neighboring countries; but other countries have been invaded in their turn. To-day we have to get them in Japan. Even when the egg is healthy, the epidemic bears equally on its product; a great part of the worms always succumb, and when the breeder gets half a crop he is very happy. Upon the whole, the great majority of breeders have worked at a loss since the invasion of this disease.

You understand the consequences of such a state of things, continued since 1849. The people make nothing; they lose, and yet