HOW SILK IS MADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18447, 7 January 1922, Page 8

HOW SILK IS MADE

Do you realise each morning when you fasten your silk tie . that one thousand silkworms have died to produce it? (asks A..T TT in the Daily Mail). That your silk House may have meant the. .death of twenty thousand? Yet that is so. The silk industry, began in . China over 4000 years ago, and' since then it has spread to India and Japan, and at a later date to France and Southern Europe. Silk cultivators exercise the greatest care in selecting their stock. Disease among silkworms spreads rapidly, and so most European breeders obtain their eggs from' China and Japan. JThe eggs are yellow, and resemble turnip seeds. They are placed in incubators kept considerably ibclow blood heat, and at the end of 30 days the silkworms are hatched. The silkworms are removed to wickerwork shelves and then fed with freshly. dried cutup mulberry leaves. The silkworm is moat voracious, and in its short life of 30 days eats over an ounce of leaves. A silkworm sheds its skin four times, and finally is 3Jin long, end weighs l-6th of an ounce. It is white and spotted with brown, and its lags have tho 'colour of the silk which it will spin. After the fourth moult the worm climbs upon a twig and there encloses itself within a cocoon. This is IJin long and Jin across, and takes three days to spin. The cocoon consists of a continuous double silk fibre about ■ 4000 yards long, which is discharged from two glands underneath the silkworm’s mouth. Coooons which will yield female moths are oval in shape. Rod-like coooons yield male®. For breeding purposes the beet coooons are selected, and placed in a warm room. After two weeks the dirty white moth which has developed within moistens . one end Of the cocoon with saliva, forces the siIV threads apart, and creeps out The moths immediately begin to pair. Each female lays about 400 eggs, and then dies. The eggs are collected, examined for signs of disease, and then stored for future breeding. The remaining cocoons are steamed so as to kill all life, and are steeped in hot water. This softens various gelatinous matters, and enables the silk thread to be reeled in si form suitable for making fabrics. ■ Silkworms are allowed to live solely, because of the silk, which they produce. They are slaves for fashion. , ,