Pine Bluff Daily Graphic

All Women Can Wear Silk.

The Department of Agriculture announces the result of a long series of successful experiments in the culture of silk-worms. For many weeks the Division of Entomology has been trying to produce a cocoon that rivals the finest French article. When the United States succeeds in manufacturing its own silk from domestic cocoons every woman of average means will be able to wear fine lansdownes, tulles and chiffons without having to worry about the cost.

Next spring the department of agriculture will establish myriads of silk-worm eggs to people who possess white mulberry or osage orange trees. Any one not so fortunate as to own one or two trees of this variety but still, desirous of going into silkworm culture, will be furnished cuttings by the department free with which to start a grove of white mulberry trees.

The eggs are sent out to each applicant in lots of three or four hundred, inclosed tightly in a double box containing instructions. Until you are ready to hatch the eggs you must keep them cool. When you have secured the proper accommodations for the future worms, in the shape of a large, dry room, and feel sure that you can supply the required quantity of white mulberry leaves, put the eggs in an incubator. A small incubator, such as is used in laboratories for drying, is recommended. Any tinsmith can make one.

As the time for hatching approaches—between three and five days—the eggs become white. Double pieces of mosquito netting or sheets of perforated cardboard sprinkled with finely cut mulberry leaves are then placed over the eggs to allow the outward passage of the worms as soon as hatched. The rearing room must be fitted with racks for receiving the mosquito netting frames, by means of which the young worms are fed. Feeding should take place three or four times a day, each time being accomplished by the simple process of placing a net full of leaves directly over the last one. Contact with the air causes the new born insect to acquire a volume larger than it had in the egg, and it quickly begins to gnaw the under surface of the mulberry leaf. It eats incessantly night and day except when asleep, and in about a month grows 14,000 times larger than it was at birth. All the worms hatched in one day must be reared together and kept in separate lots during the entire period of growth. The larva or worm stage is completed when the insect begins to build its cocoon. Its endeavors in this direction are facilitated by providing "spinning boxes," a series of compartments filled with stubby pieces of broomcorn or fine brushwood. It takes the larva 40 hours to spin its cocoon.

The silk which is liquid form at first, hardening afterwards, is secreted by two microscopic glands. By a rotary motion of its head the worm enwraps itself completely with the delicate filament. The transformation of the larva to the chrysalis is completed in from seven to ten days. The cocoons are then said to be mature, and this is the best time to gather them. After detaching the cocoons from their web they are sorted in three classes—perfect, double and defective. The best way to kill the chrysalides is to subject the cocoons to a steam temperature of about 212 degrees.

The after handling of the cocoon, by which the thread is reeled off in one continuous fibre, averaging 1600 yards in length, and is then made into silk thread of commerce, is another chapter in the history of the silk industry.