THE SILKWORM DELUSIONS.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 85, 17 August 1868, Page 197

THE SILKWORM DELUSIONS.

(Prom the Journal of Science.) In an interesting new magazine, by name the Student, Mr Shirney Hibberd gives an account of an attempt at silk cultivation in Britain. He describes how an estate of one thousand acres was bought, and carefully planted with the .the ailanthus glandulosus, the tree oh which the bombyx cynthia worm feeds. This species is the only one with which there is any chance in Great Britain, and accordingly it was chosen for cultivation. After the

trees Jaad grown up; the eggs, were obtained and hatched, and the process of feeding and growing went on finely; at length-the cocoons were obtained—and now came the question What is the value of the cocoons when you have, got them ? To this, the answer indeed is very disappointing. They are the . least in value of silkworm’s cocoons, and are in fact almost rubbish. Do they not give a con-

tinuous thread of one or two thousand yards, as the bombyxmori does? No, one or two yards—like cotton, they have to be carded, and this being done, it was found after a year or two that the estate yielded about 10s per acre ! by great good fortune the next year, it yielded Bs, while potato fields yielded-.£20 ; and then-much to the relief df the unhappy*silkworm, culti : vator, a good sharp frost'killed off his ailante and bombyces, one; and all in the same nighty SUkw'orms allv< ve^y well as toy s br ehtqmologioalspecimeris; but 1 in Britain, they are commercially; a

tauure. r Although the production of silk may be a failure in Britain, itbertainlyis a staple 'production of Italy, and . might be oiie in New Zealandj if bnlyyprppfeir atlphtion.was the bombyx.. cynihidi arid ithe ailanthus may certain,:; buifastt^he ; Slu| : ent you have cultivated it, it is of far less morL rE Very variety mofus grows to perfeetion in north New ZeaTahd,'; L e’spiecially the <mq^s : Itiid iadst

then seek for art iriferibr t silk, whemwith very . little you can raise the .cocoons iof for- if. this' is property done,. thefsilk will fetch five: shillings the .' ounce-; = ari;ounce of silk givenrin exchange for an ounce of silver, and fro nr- the great demand for silk a constant upward tendency, and would form a most lucrative employment for any farmer who has a large and industrious family. In the State of Ohio, in North America, you often see the farmer’s wives clothed iri silk raised, fed, spun, and woven, by tlieir own hands, and such silk, that when made up into habiliments will serve as heirlooms fur generations,. If in such an incorrigible elimate as North America, with six months of winter—surely iri this land of perpetual spring, the silk, might be produced far more easily, and should the silkworms now used in China be procured, which produces, two crops in the year, it. might become commercially of very great value and worthy of atteetion of the New Zealand backswocdsman.