Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/298



HE introduction of the silk industry amongst the Chinese is ascribed to Hwang Ti, who flourished about the year 2697 B.C. Coming down to historic times, it is recorded that in the thirteenth century woven silk rolls were accepted at a fixed rate of conversion as tribute, or, with silver, as payment for the salt tax; while Kublai Khan, one of the Mongol Emperors, issued notes, known as "Kiao-chao," which, with a face value of Tls. 1,000, represented Tls. 1,000 worth of silk.

The growth of silk is considered by the Chinese as next in importance to that of rice; and just as, according to the rites of Confucius, the Emperor opens the season of husbandry by holding the plough for one furrow, so the Empress every year inaugurates the process of hatching silkworms and gathering mulberry leaves. The industry in all its branches—silkworm rearing, reeling, and weaving—is almost entirely in the hands of the peasantry, and gives employment to thousands of families.

The life-history of the silkworm is a wonderful illustration of the devious ways in which nature does her work. The silkworm moth, which belongs to the family of bombici, lays thousands of eggs, and dies soon after fulfilling this function. Incubation is fostered by Italian and other continental silk-farmers by means of carefully regulated incubators, and before the eggs are selected a microscopic examination is made of the moths for the purpose of eliminating eggs laid by diseased moths. In China no such elaborate precautions are taken, although the eggs are sometimes exposed to frost to destroy the weaklings. The first of the silkworms make their appearance in about eight or ten days, and are collected on tender mulberry leaves and placed in trays, on which finely chopped leaves are scattered to serve as food. In five or six days—according to the species and to the climatic conditions—the silkworm goes to sleep, waking up twenty-four hours later with a new skin. A second period of eating, lasting four or five days, is followed by a second sleep of twenty-four hours, and a second change of skin. After the third period of feeding the silkworm sleeps for forty-eight hours, and issues from this, its last hibernation, with its third skin, and an almost insatiable appetite. During the following eight days it more than quadruples its size, attaining a maximum length of about three inches and a girth of about an inch and a half. The silk fluid or jelly begins to form in the body of the larvæ, and towards the close of the period the skin becomes distended and semi-transparent. The silk in the body of the worm is a viscous substance which only becomes the silk as seen in the cocoon on exposure to air. The spinning of the cocoon, which contains about six hundred yards of filament, takes from seventy to eighty hours. First a sort of nest, or bag, of loosely-drawn threads is attached to a number of sticks of straw or twigs, and then the actual cocoon is commenced, the worm ejecting the filament from its mouth and winding from the outside to the inside of the cocoon, so that it entirely shuts itself in. As the silk is ejected it