SERICICULTURE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 593, 21 March 1882, Page 2

SERICICULTURE.

(Continued.)

I used to breed worms on a large scale in England, about tho year '39, hatching ten ounces of eggs, for the purpose of introducing them into Ireland, that led me to make my observations, and try many experiments, I had been through the silk countries of Europe to pick up what I could of the management a short time previous, and I got grain or eggs from every attainable place. I was three years experimenting, but found the excessive moisture of the climate operate against success, producing diseases of variour kinds, but especially this dropsy and the red sickness, very fatal to young fry. so I gave it up. In 1864 1 obtained a few ova of the sulphur and yellow-pointed cocoons from Mr Waterhouse, our indefatigable Curator of the Museum at tbe Institute, and two years after Mr Samuel Davenport was kind enough to give me the eggs of one of his pure white moths, from a cocoon of tho oval and waisted shape, which he called pure Japan. I recognised them as the large white variety grown in Sicily, and like the fawn-colored Spanish. The insect was white, with bsmtPul mark;; of orange and brown on the top of the thorax, aud was altogether a different insect to what I had previously. [ received ihe following year some ova from Dr Mitdlor. of Melbourne, (.-ailed by him Japan *lso, bur, they the pointed variety of the dark oramm yellow, with luckily a few French white. I selected these, and crossed iheiii wiili those I had previously—male and female and female and male of each sort, and their progenies have been crossed and re-crossed and selected, until I had about thirty-seven different crosses, all carrying the blood of Mr Devenport's one beautinil white moth. 1 thus found that beginning with little puny things I raph.U,' improved to good cocoons, the produce of which is in the Museum at the Botanic Gardens ; portions of some were sent to London to be reported on, which gave the encouraging result of the value being from 4s 6d to 9s per lb— average 5s to Gs. I have been seven years at work here, and have arrived at the result now laid before yon. Luckily, Mr Devenport's white moth and those of the pointed varieties were imi-voltines, or insects living sixty-four to sixty-six days. so I had no difficulty in crossing; but I found man) r moths after the greatest care, will lay eggs that hatch prematurely, generally within a month from the time they are laid, so I adopted the plan of purging the of such by placing them in a warm room until I had hatched all that would, and then I found the remainder stand through the hot summer well. I reared some of these prematurely-hatched insects one season, and found they laid eggs that stood over the remainder of the season, and hatched at regular time in October, and reproduced regular annuals, not hatching prematurely ; in fact I by this means saved a pure white crop that I set great value on, and which laid the foundation of my present whites. Last year I published a pamphlet—"Short Instructions for Rearing Silkworms, for use in private families " —and which, I hope, has been of use; but I gave the feeding ages of the Spanish variety, which correspond to the thirty-eight or forty day uni-voltines, aud are similar to those sent from Sydney to Dr Schomburgk as lately arrived from Japan from Mr Adams. I should have given the ages of both varieties—those feeding forty to forty two days, and those feeding twenty-six to twenty-eight days ; but I simply copied from published charts, and they only give the short-lived sort. However, the management is similar to each, the only difference is time. The round-ended cocoons are the most preferred by the trade as reeling easier, the pointed varieties often breaking at the time the fibre is passing over and off from the point. This to some extent affects the value. Color is also of consequence. The purer the white, the more valuable and the more elastic and lustrous. As I do not recommend reeling here, but simply producing cocoons?, I shall not enter into the effect on value of good or bad reeling further than just to state that bad reeling is ruination, and second-rate reeling, producing uneven threads, knotty, and with loose flying ends, and consequently more or less tangled, causes great Ueprecia ion of value until only the value of floss w reached. In judging raw silk, it nuts: therefore be quite even and free from loose fibres or knots, brilliant and lustrous, and have not only elasticity, but strength, aud the more real silk it yields after ungurnming fehe greater the value. ■•