the beginning of April. The young worms, when hatched are placed on bamboo frames and fed on mulberry-leaves cut up into small shreds. As the worms increase in size they are transferred to a larger number of frames, and are fed with leaves not so finely shred; and so the process continues until, in their last stage, the leaves are given to them entire. The price of leaves runs from four shillings and sixpence to eight shillings a picul (133 lbs). After hatching, the worms continue eating during five days, and then sleep for the first time for two days. When they again wake their appetite is not quite so good, and they usually eat for four days only and sleep again for two days more. Then they eat for the third time for four days and repose for two. This eating and repose is usually repeated four times, and then having gained full strength, they proceed to spin their cocoons. The task of spinning occupies them from four to seven days more; and when this business is completed three days are spent in stripping off the cocoon, and some seven days later each small cultivator brings his silken harvest to the local market and disposes of it to native traders, who make it up into bales.
Leaving popular superstitious influences out of account, the quality of the silk is first of all affected by the breed of the worms that spin it, then by the quality of the leaves and the mode of feeding. As I have already remarked, the silk-worm is injured by noise, by the presence and especially by the handling of strangers, and by noxious smells. They must be fed, too, at regular hours, and the temperature of the apartment must not be too high. The greatest defect in Chinese silk has been due to the primitive mode of reeling, which the natives adopt. Shanghai is the great silk mart, and there, about June 1st, the first season's silk is usually brought down. It is never the
