stead of eating, avoid the fresh leaves, and run In preparing the little cabins for the worms you must make choice of such small brush-wood as is bushy at the tops, as already mentioned; and, in arranging them, you must intermix the tops of them with each other, which will render them thicker in the heads; but taking care always to leave little openings betwixt the twigs, so as the passage for the worms may not be stopped, which is attended with this advantage, that it affords a great many little places proper for the worms to form their cocoons in. When the heads of the brush-wood are too thin, the worms find themselves at a loss to fix themselves, and spend a great deal of their strength in ranging from branch to branch to find a proper place for them. In placing your brush-wood, you must order it so that the bottom parts of it shall stand as close to one another as possible, that the worms in groping about may every where find bushes to cling to. In using many kinds of brush-wood, where the tops are very bushy, this will of course put the bottoms at a distance from each other. But these vacancies you must fill up with little twigs, for the purpose above mentioned; to wit, that the worms may every where find branches to crawl on. When you put up the brush-wood betwixt two baskets, that is, when there is one basket placed over the head of another, as is always the case on the stage, you have only to cut the branches of an equal length with one another, but about eight or nine inches longer than the distance betwixt the two baskets; then, resting the bottom part upon the undermost, you bend the top in a curve downwards, either entirely to one side or to both, as the bushyness of the brush-wood will allow of it. The ranges are made across the breadth of the basket, at the distance of about eighteen or twenty inches from each other, so that you may easily put in your hand from one side to the other, to enable you to clean the intervals from time to time from the litter, as you shall find it necessary, which ought to be done at least once in twenty-four hours after the bushes are put up, and even twice if you can find time for it. The bushes are placed in such manner as to form with their heads little arches betwixt each row of the branches. By placing the bushes as above, they stand erect and firm, because they press equally upon the undermost as well as on the upper basket. When the worms are mounted on the brushwood, care must be taken not to suffer anybody to disturb them by handling or touching the brush-wood; because, when they begin to work, their first operation is to fix so many threads of silk to different parts of the branches, which threads are to serve to support and hold up their cocoons in their proper poise. If any one of these silk threads is broken, by handling the branches, the worm finds, when he comes to work in the cocoon, that by the loss of that thread the cocoon has lost its poise, by which means, as it does not remain steady, he cannot work with advantage, so as to finish his cocoon properly. Disappointed by this means of continuing his work, he pierces the cocoon, quits it altogether, and throws out his silk at random wherever he goes, by which means his silk is wholly lost, as is the worm also, as he finds no place to lodge in with propriety, in order to prepare for his last change of state, when he is to come out a butterfly. Some of the threads of silk, which it has been already said the worm attaches to the different branches, upon his first beginning to work, are likewise sometimes broken by another worm working in his neighbourhood, which is attended with the fatal consequences above mentioned, though this last is an accident which happens but very seldom. Such of your worms as you find loiter below, without mounting, notwithstanding they are ripe, you must be careful from time to time to place upon the brush-wood, which is ranged at the two ends and along the sides of the stage. There are always some of the worms which are lazy, or have not strength enough to mount on the branches, which however are strong enough to make good cocoons when they are placed where they can make them without the fatigue of mounting the brush-wood. Those which are so unlucky as to tumble from the brush-wood should also be placed with the other weak worms, because the fall generally diminishes their strength greatly; and those which you then place upon the brush-wood should be covered over with a piece of paper, to which they attach the threads of silk to keep their cocoons steady. You may also place some of the weak worms in papers, made up in the form of a cone or sugarloaf, in which they will make their cocoons extremely well. Great attention must also be paid to visit carefully from time to time all the different cabins, in order to remove immediately all diseased and dead worms; because the last, if left, will presently stink, and occasion a bad smell in the room, which would particularly annoy the worms which are at work in making their cocoons in the same cabin; and the diseased ones would infect the others which are sound. When it is observed that a great proportion of the worms of the same basket are ripe, and that they are wandering about in quest of the brushwood, the common practice has been to place the whole worms of that basket at once into the cabins for mounting. But this practice is attended with no small degree of inconvenience and danger, because it is impossible to manage your worms in such a manner that the contents of a whole. basket shall all of them be ready to mount at the same instant. The consequence then is, that those which are ripe mount directly, and those which are not ripe remain in the cabins, and must have food given to them till such time as they are ready to mount in their turns, during which time the litter must be changed frequently to prevent corruption: but, what is worst of all, the worms which are mounted on the brushwood, before beginning to shut themselves up entirely in their cocoons, discharge a quantity of liquid matter, which falls upon the worms below in the cabins, and wets and dirties them prodigiously; and that glutinous liquor, drying and hardening upon their skins, prevents their perspiration, and deprives them of that pliancy and agility which are so requisite to enable them to mount, as well as to make their cocoons. The consequence often is that the worms thus wet with that glutinous liquor contract diseases and die, at the very instant they are ready to mount; and as these diseases are too often contagious, by the worms bursting, the contagion is spread over the rest, which become also infected, and so the whole which remained in the cabins are often ent.rely lost. Some few people, who are more attentive, and are sensible of the dangerous, consequences of the above method, follow a different practice. They have the patience to pick out the worms, one by one, from time to time as they observe them to be, ripe, which they then place in the cabins, and which never fail to mount immediately, when they are properly chosen; that is, when the person who gathers them is a proper judge of their real point of maturity, which discovers itself by their bodies, but more particularly their heads being perfectly transparent, as before mentioned. The other worms, which are not ripe, they leave in the basket, and give them their food in the usual manner, till they become ripe in their turns, when they are constantly gathered up from time to time, and put into the cabins as they come to maturity. By this means you change them with ease, and they are safe against being wet with that glutinous liquor above mentioned, which from repeated experience has been found to have such pernicious and destructive consequences. In putting the ripe worms into the cabins, take care to place them first of all in the middle of the cabins, that the middle may be well furnished with worms before you place any at the sides. Should you begin first with the sides, or outward ends of the cabins, you will find it extremely difficult to supply the middle of the cabins with worms, without disturbing and even destroying some of those which are mounting on the sides, in reaching in with your hand towards the middle. The cocoons should be allowed to remain upon the brush-wood for six or seven days after the last of the worms of that particular parcel are mounted. After the cocoons are taken down they should be assorted according to their colors, setting apart all the weak cocoons, and such as are double. Those of each color which have a shine upon their surface, and thence called sattiny, should also be put by themselves, as they form the second sort of silk. The double cocoons form the coarsest silk of the whole. All the floss, or loose silk, which is round the outside of the cocoons, must be carefully taken off; because the better the cocoons are cleared from that outer silk the better they play in the basin, and of course the better the silk will wind off. In clearing off the floss silk from the cocoons, when taken down from the branches, it is customary to make choice of those which are judged to be the best for seed, which are put aside by themselves, and afterwards from the whole of those to pick out in pairs such as are judged best for the purpose; taking care in this last choice to pick out an equal number of males and females, as far as one can judge of the different sexes by the cocoons. In doing this care must be taken to keep the cocoons of the same day's mounting always separate by themselves, that the butterflies may pierce the cocoons at the same time. If the good cocoons taken from the whole are all first mixed together, and from this general heap the cocoons are afterwards picked out in pairs for breeding, the consequence will be that there will be set aside the cocoons of worms that have mounted the brush-wood upon different days, which of course will have the effect that the butterflies will pierce the cocoons unequally; that is, not on the same day, but at times distant from each other; so that there will not be an equal number of males and females produced at the same time, which must occasion the loss of a great many of the butterflies, and consequently the quantity of eggs or seed will fall short of what was intended; which shows the necessity of precision in keeping the cocoons of each day apart. When you happen to have more females than males you must employ the males of the preceding day a second time, that you may not lose your supernumerary females. But this is only to be done upon an urgent case of this kind; because it is greatly preferable to cause the males to serve only once if you can calculate so as to have always an equal number of both sexes for copulation. The double cocoons are to be distinguished by being much thicker than the others, generally broad, and not quite round. In taking the cocoons off the brush-wood pick them off carefully, especially if there are any dead worms amongst them, which presently corrupt; because such of the cocoons as touch these dead worms are spoiled by them, as they contract by that touch a gluiness from the dead worms, which hinders the silk from winding off properly from the cocoon. The best manner to know the good from the bad cocoons is to press them at the two ends with your fingers. If they resist well that pressure, and appear hard and firm betwixt your fingers, the cocoons are certainly good. Though they appear firm, upon pressing their sides with your fingers, they may still not be entirely good, the pressure at the two ends being of all others the best manner of knowing the good ones. After the cocoons are taken down from the brush-wood, such of them as are intended for seed must, with the utmost care, be cleaned from all the floss or loose sick which is about them; which, if allowed to remain, would greatly hinder the butterfly from getting out of his cell; after which, with a needle and thread, you must thread the cocoons by the middle, like a string of beads. But in doing this you must take care not to hurt the insect in the cocoon with the needle. You are only to pierce just as much of the skin of the cocoon as is sufficient to attach it to the thread, and this is done at the middle of the cocoon, to leave the two ends of it free, as you cannot be certain at which of the ends the insect will pierce the cocoon. This being done, you hang up the cocoons against the wall of the room by a nail, until such time as the butterflies come out. When putting the cocoons upon the thread, in order to prepare them for breeding, be at the pains to place a male and female cocoon alternately upon the thread, that they may be near each other for copulation when they come to pierce the cocoons; and, when the butterflies come out, you place them upon a piece of clean woollen cloth, that is perfectly smooth, having no nap or pile upon it, which may be hung upon the back of a chair. The male is easily to be distinguished from the female by his body being more slender, and by fluttering his wings oftener and with a great deal more force than the female. The female, after copulation, will proceed to lay her eggs upon the cloth, to which they will closely adhere; and upon which you let the eggs remain till about a month before the usual time for hatching, when they are to be taken from the cloth, which is generally done by means of a thin piece of copper coin, which in France passes for a penny (un sol marque), and which is found perfectly to answer the purpose. The cloth upon which the eggs are laid is folded up lightly and kept till the proper season in a drawer or closet in a dry room, but not too hot. Every female butterfly is calculated to produce from 300 to 400 eggs. The reason for recommending the eggs to be taken off the cloth, about a month before the usual time of hatching, is this, that it can then be done without the smallest injury to the eggs, which at that time are perfectly hard and firm; but, if delayed till the time of hatching, the case becomes greatly altered, because the eggs gradually soften by the approach of the spring, so that they cannot then be taken from the cloth without the evident risk of destroying a great part of them. Was it possible to wind off the silk from the other cocoons before the insect naturally pierces them, that is the best time for doing it, because the silk at that time winds off with much greater ease than afterwards. But, as that is found to be impossible, two methods have been pursued to destroy the insect in the cocoon, that they may wind off the silk at leisure and with full convenience. The first method, which was followed in France for that purpose, was to destroy them by placing the cocoons in baskets in a baker's oven; but, if the oven happened to be a little hotter than was proper, the silk was by that means scorched and often very much hurt by it. They therefore tried to kill the insect by the steam of boiling water, which could not at all hurt the silk, and they succeeded; so that the placing them in the oven is now wholly laid aside. The killing of the insect by the steam of boiling water is performed in the following manner:-They build a little furnace of brick of a kind of oval form, the ground part of which is for holding the wood or charcoal which they use upon this occasion; and, to make the fire burn properly, they have a little iron grate in the furnace, upon which they place the wood or charcoal; and over that, at a little distance, they place a little copper cauldron, which they fill with water, and make it boil by means of the fire underneath. Above this cauldron they have another iron grate, upon which they place the cocoons, in a little open basket composed of twigs, which is made pretty open between the twigs, to let the steam and heat of the boiling water have the easier access to the cocoons. To this cauldron, and the grate above it for holding the basket with the cocoons, you have access by a little door which opens above the entrance for the fire. The furnace is arched over the top with bricks, that, when the door above mentioned is shut, the steam may be retained within, which, in the space of eight minutes, is found effectually to kill the insects within the cocoons. The basket is then taken out and put aside, to let the cocoons dry, as, upon coming out of the furnace, they will be all of them wet with the steam; and they then place another basket in the furnace with more cocoons, taking care so to keep up the fire as to have the water in the cauldron always boiling. Charcoal is preferable to wood for fuel, upon this occasion, because it has no smoke. The smoke of wood spoils the color of the silk, and diminishes its lustre. The smoke of pit coal would be still worse. Here it is proper to add that after the insects have been killed by the steam, as above men tioned, care must be taken to stir about and move the cocoons regularly, at least once a day If this is neglected, the insects will corrupt, and breed worms in the cocoons, which will destroy the silk. After the cocoons are taken out of the furnace, and dried a little, as before directed, they should be wrapped up in a good thick woollen blanket, to keep in all the hot steam, and to prevent all access to the exterior air. This is done with a view to stifle any of the insects which may happen to be yet alive, and which, if immediately exposed too much to the open air, might revive and recover their strength. They are left covered up in that manner with the blanket for five or six hours together; after which they are to be taken out of the basket, and spread out upon a table, and are afterwards to be stirred and moved about regularly every day, as directed above. And you then assort the cocoons according to their different colors, of which they have three sorts in France; namely, the white, the yellow, and those of a greenish color. When the insects are once killed, the sooner you wind off the silk from the cocoons the better; because it can then be done more easily than after they have been kept some time; upon which account they always wind off the silk as fast as they possibly can; and it is done in the following manner :-They build a little copper cauldron into a small furnace of brick, with a fire-place under it, as in the other furnace already described, exactly in the same manner as we do in Britain at the sides of our rivers, for the washing of linen at our bleach fields; at the end of which they have a large reel, which turns round with the hand, and by a foot-board, and two or three little pieces of iron at proper distances, with eyes to them, by which to conduct the threads to the reel. The cauldron above mentioned they fill with water, and keep it always boiling with a fire of wood or charcoal; the last, however, being preferable, on account of its being free from smoke. They then put from twenty to thirty cocoons at once into the boiling water, and with a small brush of little twigs (of heath for example) they keep stirring the cocoons about. The heat of the boiling water dissolves the gum that is naturally about the silk, upon which, as the cocoons are continually touched and tossed from side to side amongst the water by the little brush, the ends of the silk attach themselves to the brush. When the woman who manages the brush perceives that she has got hold of the ends of the silk by it, she takes hold of the silk thread with her hand, puts aside the brush, and pulls the silk towards her, which disengages itself with ease from the cocoon; and this she continues to do till she has got away all the floss or outside silk of the cocoons. When she observes she has come to the fine silk, she breaks off and separates the coarse from it, which coarse silk she puts aside. She then applies her brush again till she has got hold of the end of the fine silk, all of which she sets apart, every fine thread by itself, by fixing it to a piece of wood kept near to the furnace for that purpose, till she has arranged the whole, or at least the greatest part, in this manner, which by hat means are in readiness to be thrown in to form the thread of silk which is to be wound off. This done she puts together the threads of as many of the cocoons as she inclines, according as she wants to make the thread fine or coarse. These she joins together; and, after having put the silk through one of the eyes of two of the pieces of iron which are placed for conducting the thread to the reel, she fixes the silk thread to the reel; upon which another woman, who attends to manage the reel, begins to turn it about with her hand, and keeps it in motion by applying her foot to the foot-board, and by this means winds off the silk from the cocoons, which is done with great swiftness. As soon as one or more of the cocoons are exhausted, the woman who manages the cocoons in the cauldron, or basin, supplies their places from time to time with others; taking care while these are winding off to prepare others for keeping up a continual supply, and taking care also to observe that the silk winds off regularly from all the cocoons she puts in play together. As she is obliged to have her fingers almost every other instant amongst the boiling water, in order to manage the cocoons properly, she has a basin of cold water at hand, into which she dips her fingers alternately with the other, to prevent scalding them. But, in spite of her best care, a woman who works any time at this management finds her fingers at last so affected, by the influence of the boiling water, that they are for some time in such a state she has scarcely any feeling with them: but this afterwards goes off gradually. Here it must be observed that, in forming the brush before-mentioned, great care must be taken to have the points of it exceedingly small; because, if the points are large and coarse, the silk will not take up fine from the cocoons, but will rise off thick and clotty, which will prevent its winding off properly upon the reel. The winding off the silk is always performed in the open air, generally in some garden, to prevent any accident from the fire, and more particularly to prevent any bad effects from the bad smell of the dead worms, which stink prodigiously. For these reasons this work is not suffered to be performed in any large town, but must always be done without the walls. When the day's work is over they make a fire of brush-wood, into which they throw all the dead insects, which are taken from the bottoms of the cocoons opened with a pair of scissors for that purpose, and burn them together, in order to prevent any bad consequences from their stench and smell. This is done every night regularly before the work-people retire for the evening. As the manufacturers of the silk, and merchants who want to sell! it, buy up large quantities of the cocoons, some of these people will have from ten to twenty of these little furnaces going at a time in the same garden, and even sometimes more. As the whole of the silk cannot be entirely got off by the reel, what remains upon the dead insect is put aside with the coarse part of the silk, which is taken from the cocoons in the beginning, till you meet with the fine thread which is proper for the reel. The dimensions of the stove and basin made use of at Montauban, ar described above, are as follows: Height of the stove from the ground, twentytwo inches and a-quarter. Length of the stove twenty-nine inches and a-half. Breadth of the stove twenty-four inches. Height of the iron bars for supporting the charcoal from the ground, for holding the fire, twelve inches and a quarter. Width of the door, or opening, at the bottom of the stove for taking out the ashes by, and for giving air to the fire, nine inches and a quarter. Width of the door, or opening, at which you put in the charcoal for supporting the fire, seven inches and a half. Length of the oval copper basin, which is built in on the top of the stove, for containing the hot water, in which the cocoons are put when they wind off the silk, twenty inches and three-quarters. Width of that basin sixteen inches and a half. Depth of the basin three inches and three-quarters. Breadth of the rim of the basin one inch and a quarter. Spring water or rain water, as being soft, is the only proper water to be used in the basin. Draw-well water is altogether improper for this purpose, because it is hard, and does not properly dissolve the gum which is naturally upon the silk. The water in the basin must be wholly changed twice a day; it is filled in the morning before setting to work, and the second time immediately before the people go to dinner, as it requires some time to make it boil. When you first put the cocoons into the hot water, if the silk rises thick upon the brush, it is a proof that the water is too hot. If you cannot catch the threads of silk with the brush, it is a sign that the water is too cold. When the cocoons are in play, if they rise often to the little iron conductors, it is a proof that the water is too hot. If the cocoons will not follow the thread, it is a sign that the water is too cold. By attending to these observations, you can easily manage so as to give that degree of heat to the water that is proper for the co coons. If there should happen to be any sand amongst the water in the basin, the heat makes it rise to the surface, where it fixes itself upon the cocoons. This is easily known, because, where there is any sand upon the cocoons, it makes the thread break, as if cut with a knife. For this reason the utmost care must be taken to guard against it, by cleaning the basin with the greatest attention. The fear of having sand is one of the reasons for changing the water of the basin at midday, and even oftener, if found to be necessary. When they find that there is a little sand, and that they wish to avoid changing the water, on account of the loss of time which that operation requires, as the water must be boiling before you can go on with the winding; in this last case, they cover the face of the brush all over with a parcel of the coarse silk, which is laid aside, and then put the face of the brush into the water, making it reach the bottom of the basin, along which you draw the brush gently, to catch hold of the sand with the coarse silk, to which it will immediately cling when it comes in contact with it. You then drag the brush gently up the side of the basin, and thus bring out the sand along with it. This operation, several times repeated, cleans your basin of the sand, without your being put to the trouble and loss of time in changing the water. Take care to keep up your fire under the basin in such a manner as to secure having the water always of the same degree of heat, and to throw in your addition of cold water by little and little at a time, so as it may make as little odds as possible in the degree of heat. When you throw in too much cold water at a time, so as to alter the requisite degree of heat, the silk of the cocoons which are in the basin at that time, loses its color, and grows perfectly pale; which silk, so rendered pale, it is said, will not take any dye properly, which by that means diminishes the value of your silk. In beating the cocoons in the basin, with the brush, you must carry your hand as lightly as possible, so as just to touch the cocoons slightly. If you beat too hard, the threads of silk, in place of coming off singly, cling together in lumps, which, as it prevents its winding off, occasions the loss of the silk, as it will then only answer as waste silk. When you take the fine threads to throw them to that which is winding off, they must not overlap your finger more than an inch; if too long, they will not join well, but hang down and occasion a lump, which causes the thread to break, as it is then too large to pass through the eye of the little iron conductor. In winding off the silk you must be attentive to keep the thread wet, to make it slip along the more easily towards the reel. And, when the wheel has remained any time idle, you must also wet all the thread betwixt the basin and two pieces of iron, which makes the thread run the more easily. Be attentive also from time to time to wet with water the cord, and the little wooden wheel, which moves the wooden regulator, in order to make it act properly. If this is neglected, the cord, by being dry, will not turn the regulator as it ought, by which means the silk will be placed unequally upon the reel, which may have this farther disadvantage, to cause the silk threads upon the reel to cling and stick to each other, by having been brought into contact before the first threads have had time to dry. For that wooden regulator is calculated to place the threads in such a manner upon the wheel as to make them touch one another only obliquely, and in as few places as possible at first, that the silk as it comes from the cocoons may have the time requisite to dry, before it comes to be fully in contact with that which follows. When the silk threads cling together, by being too soon brought into contact, the silk is rendered good for nothing. The cocoons called satiny, from their resemblance to satin, require only that the water should be moderately hot in the basin. The same degree of heat that is necessary for the fine cocoons would entirely spoil the others, by making the silk come off thick, and what they call bourry. You find out the degree of heat necessary for these, by examining with care in what manner the silk comes off from the first quantity of cocoons you put into the basin; and, if you find it comes off thick, you must add cold water by |