10.—The way to reproduce Silkworms,—For reproduction, some of the healthiest and most robust worms should first be selected. After the final monlting, feed them daily with the juiciest mulberry leaves. When they are full-grown, build a separate hedge labyrinth for them, and Keep warming them with a little fire in order to make them spin their cocoon quickly. In taking up the cocoons, it is necessary to distinguish the male from the female. Those with pointed bodies and small waists are males. Those with round-ex bodies and broader waists are females. Keep each sex in a separate basket, and do not pile them one on the other. Keep them in a room exposed to a current of air, and do not move them, taking care also that the rats do not get at them. In about fifteen days the moths will come out Sot aside those with curly wings, bald eyebrows, black-spotted tails, and red stomachs (Which are all diseased in one way or another), and keep the males in a so-parate place from the. females. utensil in which they kept m first be spread with rice stalks, ao that the moths*may find a retreat, As soon as a large number of moths have come forth, put equal numbers of males and females in one place, and leave them. pair off themselves. After their pairing, put them in an empty basket, protected from the wind, lest the wind should scatter or confuse them. The moths should be separated after about eight hours of pairig. It will not do to separate them too
fail to incult; uor will it do to separate eu, oF next year many of the grubs will them too late, or next year many of the grubs will draggle a white slime after ther Bight hours, therefore, should be the rule and, after the separation, spread a grub-cloth" in each of the baskets: it may be old or new cloth, but it must be square. Place the oths on the cloths, and keep them in with wooden foot-rules on ench of the four sides. Now cover the whole over with. something else, so that they may have air, but not sunlight, After half a day, the cloths will be covered with eggs. Now hang up the cloths on poles in clean room, and in seven or eight days they will have turned black. Grind down some stale stone-lime very fine, and filter ken sieve on to the cloth gently up, clean room. When the winter comes, must be taken down and salted, "As to this point I have remarked number of insects are allowed to live in order to produc eggs for the ing year. The grub comes out of the cocoon in the fourth moon, and lays its eggs upon sheets of paper provided for Thesw sheets are carefully hung up in a dry in the house until the first month of the en solar term ching chil, or "movement of ing year, On the arrival ut the larvae," about March 5th, the sheets of eggs are taken out of the boxes, and carried about in the hat or bosom, or placed among the bed-clothes in order to be hatched. Sometimes they are placed instead in a sort of large basket ur sieve (lo-tou or shui-tsz), which is kept in a place."]
L1.—The Silting—Ou the 12th of th 12th muon in each year (towards the of January), take down the grub cloth and shake them gently free from lime. Roast some salt, and, when it is cool, spread it evenly on the cloth, until it just covers the eggs and no more. Now fold up the cloths, and keep them plunged in cold tea until the 24th day of the 12th moon, Take out and open the cloths, place them on rice-sieves, and keep sprinkling fresh water on them so as to get rid of the aroma of salt, and go on doing this until there is no salt taste. When the cloths are dry, fold them as before, and put them, protected by wadded clothes, in a box. Unless you use lime in keeping the eggs (as above described), the grubs may come forth too soon; and, unless you salt them, the grubs next year will be sickly. On no account must either operation be omitted.
12.—How to take care of the early grub.—The grub needs the warmth of the human body to bring it forth, About the begianing of April, when the mulberry-leaves are the size of a shilling, wrap up the egg-cloths in paper made from mulberry-bark, and let some one not engaged in coarse: labour carry them about in his bosom or back. At night put them under the cotton. wool quilts, In about a week ti will begin to come forth... When thi takes place, spread a score or 0 of pieces of lamp-wick grass (Juncus effusus), about six inches long, upon each of the cloths fold them up; and, when they have neatly. all come forth, spread a table over with a sheet of glossy white paper; cut up very fine some mulberry leaves, and scatter them on to the paper. Now spread the gaub-cloth out over the paper, 0 that the grubs on smelling the leaves may be free to quit the cloth and take to the leaves. Next, take some bamboo utensil, and spread in it hall inch thick of rice-stalle ashes; spread the paper again over the ashes; and, if the weather is fine, add fresh loaf-dust five or six times a day, If the weather turns out dull and chilly, the grubs will have no appetite, and it will be Unnecessary to add more leaf. But in dull and chilly weather fire should not be used for warming, or else the gaubs will turn out sickly, [WV.B.—On Page 295 of Vol. 10 of the China Review I have observed:—" During
in the family wardeobo or stra the winter the ogle are in thie part, kept to uso the native expression, are "nourished by the perspiration in the clothes." In the third moon, at the Ch'ing-ming Festival, they are taken out and kept in the bosom for a fow days, after which they are placed on bamboo trays and fed for forty Gays on mulberry leaves, being carefully tended all this time. They then proceed to crawl up on hedge-like sticks or atalke placed handy for that purpose, and, in two Gaya, they, and the, cocoons they have abun around themselves, are ready for boiling. A little potash is put in the water in order that the head of the worm may b found." The silk I saw was kuo-p'én-s, sible which had had the benefit of two courses of water. The merchant said that eight cocoons wont to the thread; that the water used was nearly but not quite boiling.
13.—Hovw to rear the full-grown grub—When the grubs are four or live days old, the utensil will gradually got a thicker and thicker layer of leaf refuse and drop-must then be changed, apply of loaves is eaten up, some rice-husk ashes should be very lightly shaken through a silken sieve grubs, Add another layer of ud the grubs will all emerge from the ashes to eat the leaves. Take these grubs very gently up with a pair of silk worm chopsticks, and transfer them to another vessel, Should any of them not have come up, add some more leaf before transferring them, Two or three days after changing the vessel, some of them will have already assumed' a whitish hue, geown a pointed hora at the mouth, and ceased to cat, are undergoing their first inculting. Add leaves as before long as a considerable number remain unmounted; and, when you observe that nearly the whole have inculted, sift more rice-husk ashes upon them, and more leaves. Ang grubs which are atill behind in inculting will as before emerge from the ashes lo eat the leaves, and will gradually all incult as leaves are gradually superadded. Now once more sift over tho whole another layer of rice-husk ashes, and wait for the grubs to emerge.
14.—The Second Boulting.—When_ the grubs have risen after their first moultin they must be fed 27 or 28 times with lea during the ensuing four or five days. The whitish colour, sharp horn, and abstinence from food are evinced as before, under the name of "second inculting," and exactly the same treatment is adopted as in th firat inculting,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.