The Rest Being
Deposited In Small Bags Of Linen, Are Worn By Women In Their
Bosoms, Until The Worms Begin To Appear:
Then they are placed in
shallow wooden boxes, covered with a piece of white paper, cut
into little holes, through which the worms ascend as they are
hatched, to feed on the young mulberry-leaves, of which there is
a layer above the paper.
These boxes are kept for warmth between
two mattrasses, and visited every day. Fresh leaves are laid in,
and the worms that feed are removed successively to the other
place prepared for their reception. This is an habitation,
consisting of two or three stories, about twenty inches from each
other, raised upon four wooden posts. The floors are made of
canes, and strewed with fresh mulberry-leaves: the corner posts,
and other occasional props, for sustaining the different floors,
are covered with a coat of loose heath, which is twisted round
the wood. The worms when hatched are laid upon the floors; and
here you may see them in all the different stages (if moulting or
casting the slough, a change which they undergo three times
successively before they begin to work. The silk-worm is an
animal of such acute and delicate sensations, that too much care
cannot be taken to keep its habitation clean, and to refresh it
from time to time with pure air. I have seen them languish and
die in scores, in consequence of an accidental bad smell. The
soiled leaves, and the filth which they necessarily produce,
should be carefully shifted every day; and it would not be amiss
to purify the air sometimes with fumes of vinegar, rose, or
orange-flower water. These niceties, however, are but little
observed. They commonly lie in heaps as thick as shrimps in a
plate, some feeding on the leaves, some new hatched, some
intranced in the agonies of casting their skin, sonic
languishing, and some actually dead, with a litter of half-eaten
faded leaves about them, in a close room, crouded with women and
children, not at all remarkable for their cleanliness. I am
assured by some persons of credit, that if they are touched, or
even approached, by a woman in her catamenia, they infallibly
expire. This, however, must be understood of those females whose
skins have naturally a very rank flavour, which is generally
heightened at such periods. The mulberry-leaves used in this
country are of the tree which bears a small white fruit not
larger than a damascene. They are planted on purpose, and the
leaves are sold at so much a pound. By the middle of June all the
mulberry-trees are stripped; but new leaves succeed, and in a few
weeks, they are cloathed again with fresh verdure. In about ten
days after the last moulting, the silk-worm climbs upon the props
of his house, and choosing a situation among the heath, begins to
spin in a most curious manner, until he is quite inclosed, and
the cocon or pod of silk, about the size of a pigeon's egg, which
he has produced remains suspended by several filaments. It is no
unusual to see double cocons, spun by two worms included under a
common cover. There must be an infinite number of worms to yield
any considerable quantity of silk. One ounce of eggs or grains
produces, four rup, or one hundred Nice pounds of cocons; and one
rup, or twenty-five pounds of cocons, if they are rich, gives
three pounds of raw silk; that is, twelve pounds of silk are got
from one ounce of grains, which ounce of grains its produced by
as many worms as are inclosed in one pound, or twelve ounces of
cocons. In preserving the cocons for breed, you must choose an
equal number of males and females; and these are very easily
distinguished by the shape of the cocons; that which contains the
male is sharp, and the other obtuse, at the two ends. In ten or
twelve days after the cocon is finished, the worm makes its way
through it, in the form of a very ugly, unwieldy, aukward
butterfly, and as the different sexes are placed by one another
on paper or linen, they immediately engender. The female lays her
eggs, which are carefully preserved; but neither she nor her mate
takes any nourishment, and in eight or ten days after they quit
the cocons, they generally die. The silk of these cocons cannot
be wound, because the animals in piercing through them, have
destroyed the continuity of the filaments. It is therefore, first
boiled, and then picked and carded like wool, and being
afterwards spun, is used in the coarser stuffs of the silk
manufacture. The other cocons, which yield the best silk, are
managed in a different manner. Before the inclosed worm has time
to penetrate, the silk is reeled off with equal care and
ingenuity. A handful of the cocons are thrown away into a kettle
of boiling water, which not only kills the animal, but dissolves
the glutinous substance by which the fine filaments of the silk
cohere or stick together, so that they are easily wound off,
without breaking. Six or seven of these small filaments being
joined together are passed over a kind of twisting iron, and
fixed to the wheel, which one girl turns, while another, with her
hands in the boiling water, disentangles the threads, joins them
when they chance to break, and supplies fresh cocons with
admirable dexterity and dispatch. There is a manufacture of this
kind just without one of the gates of Nice, where forty or fifty
of these wheels are worked together, and give employment for some
weeks to double the number of young women. Those who manage the
pods that float in the boiling water must be very alert,
otherwise they will scald their fingers. The smell that comes
from the boiling cocons is extremely offensive. Hard by the
harbour, there is a very curious mill for twisting the silk,
which goes by water.
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