Part 26

In accounting for the presence of silkworms in the garden of this early empress, we can rightly conclude that certain parts of China have always abounded in forests of mulberry trees, and that the worms themselves had existed in great numbers in a wild state and attached their cocoons to the trees for ages before any use was discovered for their web. In fact, such wild silkworms not only abound in China to-day, but have also been found in Southern and Eastern Asia, inhabiting the jungles of India, Pegu, Siam and Cochin China, but the cocoons of these worms are, naturally, of a very inferior quality, and are only used for the crudest kind of work.

Illustration by courtesy The Brainerd & Armstrong Silk Co.

THE INTRODUCTION OF SILK INTO EUROPE

Pilgrims brought silkworm eggs in their staffs, together with the branches of mulberry trees, from China to the Court of Justinian at Byzantine, A.D. 555. The penalty for taking silkworm eggs out of China was death.

The accompanying illustration is a reproduction of a mural painting on rep in the Royal Textile Museum at Crefeld, Germany, one of the great silk textile centers of the world. The artist shows the pilgrims presenting the silkworm eggs and the mulberry branches to Justinian, beside whom, just in the act of rising, is his famous queen Theodora.]

Silk culture from the time of Hoang-Ti became one of the cherished secrets of China. The headquarters of the industry was in the Province of Chen Tong, where was produced the silk for the royal family. In time the silk and stuffs of China became articles of export to various portions of Asia. Long journeys were made by caravans, occupying two-thirds of a year in going from the cities of China to those of Syria, but the price obtained there exceeded the expense of the journey, and thus left a large margin of profit to the merchants. In this manner, for one thousand years, the Chinese sent their silk to the Persians who, without knowing how or from what it was made, carried it to the Western nations.

So carefully did the Orientals guard their secret, that there is reason to believe that Aristotle was the first person in the occidental world to learn the true origin of the wrought silk from Persia. In commenting on the silk which was brought from that country on the return of Alexander’s victorious army, he described the silkworm as a “horned insect,” passing through several transformations, which produced “bomby-kia,” as he called the silk. But the classics must convince one that Aristotle’s discovery did not at once become matter of current knowledge. In fact, for five hundred years after Aristotle’s time the common theory of the origin of silk among the Greeks and Romans was that it was either “a fleece which grew upon a tree” (thus confounding it with cotton), or a fibre obtained from the inner bark of a tree; and some, deceived by the glossy and silky fibres of the seed vessels of the plant that corresponds to our milk or silk weed, believed it to be the product of some plant or flower. So Virgil, in speaking of silk, says, “the Seres comb the delicate fleecings from the leaves.”

In the Sixth Century, A.D., all the raw silk was still being imported from China by way of Persia, when the Emperor Justinian, having engaged in war with Persia, found his supply of raw silk cut off and the manufacturers in great distress. His foolish legislation did not help the situation, and a crisis was averted only by two Nestorian monks, who came from China with seed of the mulberry tree and a knowledge of the Chinese method of rearing worms. No one, on pain of death, was allowed to export the silkworm eggs from China, but Justinian bribed the monks to return to that country, and in 555 they came back, bringing with them a quantity of silkworm eggs concealed in their pilgrim’s staffs. And here let us say that there has only once since been an important importation of eggs from Asia. That was about 1860, when Dr. Pasteur was making a study of a germ disease which was threatening the industry. Consequently, it can truly be said that practically all the silkworms of the Western world are descended from those brought in the eggs by the monks to Constantinople. Justinian gave the control of the silk industry to his own treasurer. Weavers, brought from Tyre and Berytus, were employed to manufacture the silk, and the whole production was a monopoly of the emperor, he fixing its prices. Under his management, the cost of silk became eight times as great as before, and the Royal Purple was twenty-four times its former price. But this monopoly was not of long duration and, at the death of Justinian in 565, the monopoly ceased, and the spread of the industry commenced in new and diverse directions.

While every detail of the growth of the industry has an unusual interest, as showing how such an insignificant thing as a worm may become a potent factor in Nature’s economy, the scope of this article will hardly allow us to more than sketch some of the other more salient points of the history of the silkworm.

About the year 910, the silkworms made their appearance in Cordova, Spain, being brought there by the Moors. From Spain silk culture soon extended to Greece and Italy.

~WHEN SILK CULTURE WAS INTRODUCED IN AMERICA~

Silk was introduced on this continent through the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, and the first silkworm eggs sold for $60.00 an ounce.

A century later royal orders were issued requiring mulberry trees to be planted in the Colony of Virginia, and a fine of twenty pounds of tobacco was imposed for neglect, and fifty pounds of tobacco was given as a bounty for every pound of reeled silk produced.

Silk culture spread rapidly in the other Colonies, and to-day the story of the ineffectual attempts to profitably rear the silkworm in this country is as voluminous as it is interesting. Suffice it to say, as a sop to our inherent Yankee pride, that silk culture was introduced into Connecticut as early as 1737, the first coat and stockings made from New England silk being worn by Governor Law in 1747, and the first silk dress by his daughter, in 1750. This State, for the eighty-four years following, led all the others in the amount of raw silk produced. In Connecticut also, was built the first silk mill to be erected on this continent for the special purpose of manufacturing silk goods. This building was constructed in 1810 by Rodney and Horatio Hanks, at Mansfield, and is still standing as an heirloom which has come to us from the infant days of the industry.

The silkworm has become domesticated, since, during the long centuries in which it has been cultivated, it has acquired many useful peculiarities. Man has striven to increase its silk producing power, and in this he has succeeded, for, by comparing the cocoon of the silkworm of to-day with its wild relations, the cocoon is found to be much larger, even in proportion to the size of the worm that makes it or the moth that issues from it. The moth’s loss of the power of flight and the white color of the species are probably the results of domestication.

GATHERING MULBERRY BRANCHES.

This picture shows a grove of mulberry trees from which branches are being gathered as food for the worms. This is often done by the children.]

The moths are placed upon pieces of cardboard, upon which they deposit their eggs.

The cards with the eggs are kept in a cool place until the season for hatching arrives.]

This picture shows two boys preparing a bed of twigs or branches upon which the worms may spin their cocoons.]

Illustrations by courtesy The Brainerd & Armstrong Co.

HATCHING THE EGGS.

As the eggs hatch on the cards, the young worms are removed to other cards or trays, where they are fed and cared for.]

Every few days the young worms are changed to new and clean cards.]

The cocoons are soaked in hot water in the basins shown in the front to loosen the gum. The silk threads then pass through the hands of the operators and are reeled on swifts in the cabinet shown in the rear.

A more modern appliance for reeling the silk is shown on one of the following pages.]

The foregoing pages and pictures by courtesy of Brainerd & Armstrong Silk Company, from their book entitled, “Silk, the Real versus the Imitation.”

The cuts on this page and balance of cuts in the story of silk copyright by the Corticelli Silk Mills.