The eggs, while containing the embryo silk-worm, have a dull lavender
color, but after discharging the worm they resembled little sugar
pills. The worms were about one-sixteenth of an inch long, but the
first week of moulting shows them to be half an inch long and the
second week one inch. For the third moulting they are placed on
perforated paper, through the holes of which the worms crawl. This
relieves the attendant of considerable labor in transferring them. The
fourth week the head is white, and the worm has attained its normal
growth. There is nothing now for the worm to do but leaf around and
lunch on mulberry leaves until the eighth or ninth day after shedding
its skin the fourth time, when he or she, as the case may be, proceeds
to form its cocoon. It is then of a golden transparent color. It takes
about five days for the industrious worm to finish its cocoon. Then,
to destroy the moth inside, it is subjected to heat, and the cocoon is
then ready for spinning.
When ready for use the cocoons are soaked in a tub of water until all
the glutinous substance is removed. With a small whisk-broom the cocoon
is brushed until ends, which are as fine as a cobweb, come loose. They
will then reel off without breaking. One cocoon will give four hundred
yards of raw silk.
Indian rubber trees are also easily cultivated in Mexico, and the
demand for them is large. It's easy to make a comfortable income in
Mexico, if one goes about it rightly.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LITTLE NOTES OF INTEREST.
Superstition is the ruin of Mexico. While we were there some children
found a shell containing an image of the Virgin. The matter was deemed
miraculous, and they directly decided to build a chapel on the spot
where the shell was found.
In the State of Morelos exists a stone that they say was used before
the conquest to call the people to labor or to war. The stone appears
to be hewn, in the center of the upper part is a hole which runs
into the heart of the stone, forming a spiral. On fitting to this a
mouthpiece and blowing, the sound of a horn is produced, somewhat
melancholy in tone, but so loud that it can be heard a great distance;
the ranchmen of that locality employ it as a means of calling their
flocks and the animals quickly obey the summons. It is known as the
"Calling Stone."
There is a tradition about this stone; they say that no difference
where it is taken, that by some invisible means it always goes back to
the spot it has occupied for the past century. They say that once it
was even chained in a cellar, but in the morning it was missing, and
when they searched for it, it was found in its old position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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