Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and JapanKing, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Science
Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan
King, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Agriculture -- China; Agriculture -- Japan; Agriculture -- Korea
Not all silk produced in these northern countries is from the
domesticated Bombyx mori, large amounts being obtained from the
spinnings of wild silkworms feeding upon the leaves of species of
oak growing on the mountain and hill lands in various parts of
China, Korea and Japan. In China the collections in largest amount
are reeled from the cocoons of the tussur worm (Antheraea pernyi)
gathered in Shantung, Honan, Kweichow and Szechwan provinces. In the
hilly parts of Manchuria also this industry is attaining large
proportions, the cocoons being sent to Chefoo in the Shantung
province, to be woven into pongee silk.
M. Randot has estimated the annual crop of wild silk cocoons in
Szechwan at 10,180,000 pounds, although in the opinion of Alexander
Hosie much of this may come from Kweichow. Richard places the export
of raw wild silk from the whole of China proper, in 1904, at
4,400,000 pounds. This would mean not less than 75,300,000 pounds of
wild cocoons and may be less than half the home consumption.
From data collected by Alexander Hosie it appears that in 1899 the
export of raw tussur silk from Manchuria, through the port of
Newchwang by steamer alone, was 1,862,448 pounds, valued at
$1,721,200, and the production is increasing rapidly. The export
from the same port the previous year, by steamer, was 1,046,704
pounds. This all comes from the hilly and mountain lands south of
Mukden, lying between the Liao plain on the west and the Yalu river
on the east, covering some five thousand square miles, which we
crossed on the Antung-Mukden railway.
There are two broods of these wild silkworms each season, between
early May and early October. Cocoons of the fall brood are kept
through the winter and when the moths come forth they are caused to
lay their eggs on pieces of cloth and when the worms are hatched
they are fed until the first moult upon the succulent new oak leaves
gathered from the hills, after which the worms are taken to the low
oak growth on the hills where they feed themselves and spin their
cocoons under the cover of leaves drawn about them.
The moths reserved from the first brood, after becoming fertile, are
tied by means of threads to the oak bushes where they deposit the
eggs which produce the second crop of tussur silk. To maintain an
abundance of succulent leaves within reach the oaks are periodically
cut back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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