In the course of a week after the commencement of this operation, the cocoons are complete, and it now becomes necessary to take them in hand before the pupæ turn into _moths_, which would immediately bore their way out, and spoil the cocoons. When a certain number, therefore, have been laid aside for the sake of future eggs, the chrysalides are killed by being placed in jars under layers of salt and leaves, with a complete exclusion of air. They are subsequently placed in moderately warm water, which dissolves the glutinous substance that binds the silk together, and the filament is wound off upon reels. This is put up in bundles of a certain size and weight, and either becomes an article of merchandise under the name of “raw silk,” or is subjected to the loom, and manufactured into various stuffs, for home or foreign consumption. The Chinese notwithstanding the simplicity of their looms (see frontispiece), will imitate _exactly_ the newest and most elegant patterns from France. They particularly excel in the production of _damasks_, _figured-satins_, and _embroidery_. Their crape has never yet been perfectly imitated; and they make a species of washing silk, called at Canton “ponge,” which, the longer it is used, the softer it becomes. The Chinese have from time immemorial been celebrated for the beauty of their embroideries; indeed, it has been doubted whether the art was not originally introduced into Europe by them, through the Persians. From what has been said, it is evident that the raising of the _mulberry-tree_ should first engage the attention of the cultivator, since its leaves form the almost exclusive nourishment of the silk-worm. It is scarcely necessary that we should in a work of this description enter more fully into the cultivation of the mulberry-tree. This has already been so ably done by Jonathan Cobb, Esq. of Dedham, Mass., Dr. Pascalis of New York, Judge Comstock of Hartford, Conn., and E. P. Roberts, Esq. of Baltimore, as to leave no stone unturned, or any want upon the subject. In such parts of the Chinese empire where the climate is favorable to the practice, and where alone, most probably, the silk-worm is indigenous, it remains at liberty, feeding on the leaves of its native mulberry-tree, and going through all its mutations among the branches, uncontrolled by the hand and unassisted by the cares of man. As soon, however, as the silken balls have been constructed, they are appropriated by the universal usurper, who spares only the few required to reproduce their numbers, and thus furnish him with successive harvests[137].