[VOL I] FEEDING SILK-WORMS, AND SORTING THE COCOONS

FEEDING SILK-WORMS, AND SORTING THE COCOONS

Cover Image: Feeding Silkworms and Sorting the Cocoons ( Bombyx mori ) / China / Drawn by T.Allom Engraved by A.Willmore – ALAMY Image ID:2WXT7CH

*The process of “Sifting Cocoons” involves separating silkworm pupae from their cocoons using a sieve or other tools. This is typically done to extract silk threads from the cocoons for the production of silk fabrics. During this process, the cocoons are soaked and heated, and then sieved through a mesh or other device to separate the pupae from the silk threads.

Lo! where the caterpillar-crop
A golden fruitage bears;
More useful than the painted fop
Its silken spoil that wears.
Yet still for him they toil, for him they die –
Worm, swathed nymph, and parent butterfly.

C. J. C.

IT has been generally supposed that the people known in ancient history as the Seres, were identical with the Chinese, both because of their eastern position, and that the principal silk manufactures were believed to have been brought from thence, on which account the Romans named the country Sericum, or Serica, or Sereinda. This fact, however, is not at all certain; on the contrary, there are strong, and almost conclusive reasons for allowing, that the trifling quantity of silk imported into Rome, came, not from China, or Sereinda, but from Persia. It is by no means probable that it was the Chinese who were said to have sent an embassy to Augustus, to solicit the friendship of the Romans, as this would be the only instance in the history of that people, of their having condescended to court foreign alliance, independent of its being opposed to their fundamental laws, which not only prohibit intercourse with strangers, but even jealously prevent the emigration of their people. Florus, who wrote nearly a century later than the death of Augustus, is the only author who mentions this embassy, and, as no historian contem porary with the emperor, has alluded to so remarkable a circumstance, the natural presumption is, that no such embassy was ever sent to Rome. It might be added, in further confirmation of the opinion, that the Chinese never traded, negotiated, nor were even known to the Romans,—that the most learned ancient geographers conceive Serica to be identical with Tartary, not with China Proper; and, in their charts it adjoining Scythia. The inhabitants of these districts were practised in archery, a Tartar accomplishment, but they did not produce or manufacture silk so much as cotton.

If the Romans, therefore, procured their silk from Persia, and that history is silent on its further origin, no proof remains that China is its native country. A colony of Jews are known to have travelled into China at an early period, and, according to the records preserved by their descendants, and the authority of Chinese historians, settled there soon after Alexander the Great had opened a communication with the East. Is it not probable, that these industrious people carried with them this useful piece of knowledge from Persia, or from some of the adjoining countries, where the silk-worm was then certainly known to have been reared? The Emperor Kaung-shee, in his treatise on Natural History, states, that the Chinese are much mistaken in imagining that silk was an exclusive product of China, for that the upper region of India had a native worm of a larger growth, and which spun a stronger silk than any in China. There is reason to believe that silk was produced in the early ages of history, both in Tangut and Kitai; several expressions in the bible warrant a presumption that the beautiful manufacture was known always been supposed to mean silken robes. The Jews in China, like the Huguenots in England, carried along with them the practical knowledge of an useful art, and both have become so completely amalgamated with their adopted countries, that distinction is now almost obliterated. Still may the Israelites be traced at Hang-tchoo-foo, where they have long been settled, and where they have acquired the reputation of fabricating the best stuffs in China. Some curious circumstances respecting this tradition may be noticed here. Few of these immigrants, except the rabbins, have any knowledge of Hebrew, and tradition appears to have drawn away many of the Jews from the faith of their ancestors,—an effect directly contrary to that which may be observed to follow religious persecution. The high-priests are rigorously attached to the Old Law, but are ignorant of any other Jesus having appeared on earth, except the son of Sirach. If this statement be correct, these Jews could not have been part of the ten tribes carried away into captivity, but followers of Alexander’s army, which corresponds with their own account of their immigration.

In the sixth century, two Persian monks, migrating from their country, secretly conveyed away a number of silk-worms’ eggs in a hollow cane, along with the white mulberry, to Constantinople, where they were encouraged by the Emperor Justinian to breed the insect, and cultivate its cocoons. This was the first introduction of the silk-worm into Europe, but the country of its authors is not necessarily that of the insect itself, which may still therefore have come from Serica, or Persia, or Kitai, or Tangut, or perhaps China Proper. Popular histories of China, however, ascribe the origin of silk manufacture to the Empress Si-ling-shi, wife of Hoang-ti, about 2,700 years before the Christian era; and the same fabulous chronicles say, that the raw material had been exported from China many centuries before the insect that produced it, and had given extensive employment to manufacturers in Persia and Phcenicia.

The invention of the celebrated Coan stuffs, is attributed by the Greeks to Pamphyla, who is said to have taught her countrywomen of Cos to unweave the heavy silks of the East, and recompose the material into a transparent gauze, thus gaining in measure what was lost in substance. Before the reign of Augustus, even manufactured silk was little known in Europe; it was then sold for its weight in gold; and was worn only by a few ladies of patrician rank. In the beginning of Tiberius’s reign, a law was passed, that no man should disgrace himself by the effeminate practice of wearing silken garments; and it is mentioned as a wanton extravagance of the prodigal Heliogabalus, that he had a garment made wholly of silk. For six centuries the culture of the silk-worm in Europe was confined to the Greek empire, and several manufactories were established at Athens, Corinth, Thebes, and the Ægean Islands, for rearing the worm upon mulberry leaves, for unwinding the cocoons, for twisting the filaments into threads of various degrees of strength, and weaving them lastly into robes. From Greece the culture of the silk-worm passed to the Venetian republic, which then enjoyed the most extensive commercial intercourse with the western countries of Europe, and these enterprising people established vast factories by which thriving trade in silk.

It was about the year 1130, that Roger II., King of Sicily, and son of the famous Count Roger the Norman, having violently carried away silk-weavers from the Holy Land, established manufactures in his capital city of Palermo, and in some of the chief places of Calabria. From this source sprang the whole culture, and manufacture, and trade of silk, from which Italy subsequently reaped so rich a harvest. By whom the culture of silk was introduced into Spain, does not appear very certainly, but the probability is that the Moors were the original promoters of this branch of industry at Cordova, Murcia, and Granada; for, when the last of these places was captured in the fifteenth century by Ferdinand, he found the silk trade there in a highly productive and prosperous state.

In the year 1480, several French nobles returning from the conquest of Naples, brought some silk-worms with them into Dauphiny, along with the white mulberry; but their efforts appear to have been made more from a desire to promote the study of natural history than for any immediate benefit to manufacturers or commerce. Whatever their personal objects were, from these small beginnings a knowledge of the rearing and culture of the worm, and of its peculiar food, soon extended itself throughout France; so that in 1521, artisans were invited from Milan to aid in the establishment of the manufacture on a wider basis. From the nursery-grounds of Monsieur Traucaut of Nismes, the first formed in France for the culture of the white mulberry, all those trees that now adorn and enrich the southern provinces have been obtained. It is said that the first mulberry-tree planted in France is still living, surrounded by its numerous offspring, many of nearly equal age with itself. Fully appreciating the value of infant manufactures, Henri Quatre extended every species of protection and encouragement to the plantation of the mulberry, which his wisdom and power enabled him; and, although cut off by an untimely fate, he yet lived long enough to witness the entire success of this his favourite project.

The climate of England is at variance in this instance with the industry of the inhabitants, which appears capable of surmounting difficulties that have checked the enterprise of all other countries; and for this reason only is it that the silk-worm has not been naturalized here also. In 1453, a company of silk-women was formed, whose employment and speculation were confined to needle-work, embroidery and other branches in which silk thread was employed, but they had no connection with the culture of the silk-worm or raising of the mulberry. It was reserved for our learned but imbecile monarch, James I., to recommend this vain and hopeless measure to his people, in a studied speech from the royal throne. England had long been dependent upon foreign countries for the supply of the broad manufacture; and might have continued much longer in that position of profit to foreigners, had not the persecution of the French Protestants in 1685, obliged a large number of well-conducted and industrious artisans, to seek refuge in England, bringing with them an accurate knowledge of the art of silk-weaving. To this event is to be traced the ultimate establishment of the silk-trade in Spitalfields. The manufacture of silk had progressed under King James; so that in 1629 the silk-throwsters were incorporated by a royal charter, but the accession of the French emigrants completed the strength and secured the existence of this important branch of our manufactures.

And now so remunerating were the prices which this description of manufacture produced, that no impediment seemed too great for those who were ambitious of pursuing it. One instance is deserving of lasting record in the commercial and manufacturing history of England. In the year 1720, Sir Thomas Lombe having witnessed the wonderful performance of a silk-mill in Italy, at the risk of his personal safety succeeded in procuring a model and conveying it secretly to England. It consisted of 26,586 wheels, was moved by a single water-wheel, and, in twenty-four hours worked three millions of yards of organized silk. The factory was erected on an islet in the Derwent river, in Derbyshire; and Sir Thomas secured his importation by a patent, at the expiration of which parliament voted him £14,000, in consideration of the service he had rendered to the manufactures of his country, and the imminent peril he had encountered in effecting it. Scientific discoveries, and progress in the arts, have so completely superseded the most complicated and wonderful pieces of mechanism produced in the earlier ages, that labour is abridged, the quantity of our manufactures increased, the quality ameliorated, and foreign competition overpowered, by the products of our improved and improving machinery.

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