SILK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3707, 22 October 1927, Page 4

SILK.

ITALY’S GREAT INDUSTRY. Silk has sometimes been referred to as Italy’s gold mine. It is the one rawmaterial of which she is a leading producer, w r ith an annual output, for the three-year period 1923-25, valued at 4,000,000.000 lire. Silk is the largest item in Italy’s export trade. The total value of her silk textile exports in 1925 amounted to 3,275,000*000 lire. Silk is of special value to Italian national economy, as it is a farm product which utilises the leaf of the mulberry for feeding the silkworms, and gives employment to the persons less suited to heavy work on the land. Approximately 600,000 farm families, located mainly in northern Italy and along the Adriatic coast, are engaged in the delicate work of raising the silkworm and caring for the silk cocoon crop. The fruit of their labours supplies the raw materia] for the silk reeling and throwing mills, which in their turn feed not only a great export trade, but the flourishing national silk weaving industries. No fewer than 186,/00 persons are now employed in these several industries. BIG EXPORT BUSINESS. The products of the Italian silk industry are now exported all over the world, either direct to foreign consuming centres or to the great distributing markets of London, Paris and Hamburg. The silk industry and trade suffered much during the war, but the losses are being repaired. The yield of cocoons, which fell off heavily from 1915 to 1920, has once more risen, with inevitable seasonal fluctutations, to the pre-war level- Improved technique and strict Government regulation and inspection of silk-breeding stations nave improved the quality of the fibre, which has a w-ell deserved reputation for excellency. Strict legislation under the Act of June 28, 1923, regulates the breeding of silkworms in Italy. The Pasteur cellular system is the only one permitted, and it has placed Italian silkworm eggs and cocoons in the front rank for quality. Patient care lias been devoted to breeding with a view to combining the strength of the Japanese and Chinese silk with the fineness of the Italian. Success has been such that Italy now exports, silk eggs even to China and Japan. FEWER DEFECTIVE COCOONS. Formerly from 25 to 35 kilograms of cocoons were obtained from one ounce of eggs; now the average yield has risen to 60 kilograms and even to 80 and 90 in districts favoured by a mild climate and skilled breeders. For instance, these high yields are regularly obtained in Friuli and Piedmont. The ratio of defective cocoons unsuited to reeling has fallen from an average of 25 to 30 per cent, at which it stood 30 years ago, to an average of from 5 to 8 per cent. Instead-of the 14 to 15 kilograms of cocoons which used to be required to obtain one kilogram of silk, 10 kilograms of fresh coons are now sufficient. The special conditions needed tor the successful breeding of the silkworm, a mild climate and an abundant supply of

skilled labour, are found in Italy. They are essential, and this explains why sillo-breeding cannot be carried on everywhere. The districts in which it is most successfully practised in Italy are the hills round Treviso and along the coast of the Marche and the Abruzzi. The importance of the business is shown by the fact that no fewer than 150 establishments are engaged in breeding silkworms. Their annual output averages 1,000,000 ounces-qf eggs valued at from 60,000,000 to 70,000,000 lire. These establishments employed some 15,000 persons, besides several thousand breeders. In view of the economic importance of the silk industry to Italy, the national government seconds the efforts of the trade associations to insure its development. The silk cocoon industry is now centred in the north, the production in Calabria, the Abruzzi and other southern provinces being comparatively trifling.