1971 School Magazine

**"fJJ^#:i#?-'." St{f, AU*** Silk has been labelled as the finest material in the world. For centuries it has been the.most e-xpensive and most prized of all materials. In China, silk was so iiizea thai for three thousand years no-one was able [o smuggt. out the eggs of the worm which produces it. About four thousand, six hundred years ago' according to legend, Siling-Chi wife of the Emperor of Cfti.tJttuded the cocoon and thought if she could unwind the thread and spin it into yarn then.weave it, slie woutd have the most beautiful cloth in the world' She carefully watched the way the silkworms soun and found a way to unwind the threads. The silk was so prized when it was made that Si-Ling-Chi was made a goddess. The silk China began to produce found its way into many other countiies. By the time it had reached ihese countiies it was worth its weight in goid. Although China exported silk to other countries it did noilet out the secret ofhow it was produced and many people thought it grew like flax or cotton. Silk was-such-a valuable export that for thousands of vears China had laws which put to death anyone ittempting to smuggle out of silkworms which spun the thread or the eggs of the silkworm as well as the seeds of the mulberry tree, its only food. It wasn't until the sixth century after Christ that emperor Justinian arranged for two monks who had observed silkmaking in China to smuggle out the eggs of the silkworm and whatever else was needed for the silk industry in Constantinople. The two monks managed to smuggle out the eggs and seeds of the mulberry tree in hollow bamboo canes. The industry spread to Spain in the eighth century, Naples and Sicily in the twelfth century and France in the seventeenth century. In three hundred A.D. Japan managed to get four trained girls from China to establish the silk industry. The Far East still produces most of the silk we use but there are industries in Britain and France and Italy. In Australia we have no silk industry but silkworms are very popular pets and a lot of children at primary school acquire a few. The silkworms we keep at home are ones originating from primary school days. Since then we have grven many away, stifled some and swapped with other silkworm raisers to avoid too much interbreeding as this causes size deteriorations in the cocoon. This year we raised about eighty worms and of these we gave away over twenty. In past years we have raised up to four hundred silkworms. Our numbers have been limited by lack of space and leaves and my mother's impatience. The year before last if we had let the moths emerge and mate we would have become overcrowded so we stifled them in the oven.

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A silkworm is just an insect which has all the characteristics of ceass Lepidoptera The scientific name of the common silkworm is Bombyx mori or mulberry eating worm. This is the most common breed oi silkworm raised but there are several other known types whose silk is not as fine and strong as the silk of Bombyx mori. There is one type cecropia which is called the American silkworm. The cocoon of this type is similar to the cocoon of the common silkworm although larger in size. The moth which emerges is a large butterfly- shaped moth of red, brown, buff and orange- where as the- silkworm moth is small and white and has wings similar to a fly in that they are doubled up on top of each other but are white and covered with scales as is common in moths and butterflies. The actual "worm" or larvae of this type is also completely different to Bombyx mori. The "worm" grows to four inches and is'green with red and blue knobs down its back. The larvae of bombyx mori is hatched from an egg approximately one-sixteenth of an inch across. This is usuatty laid in November the year before and remains in a hibernating state until the beginning of.the next spring unless thiy are artifically thermostated' If after tratcling the eggs are artifically hjbern-ated for six weeks it temp6iatures ranging from 32o Fahrenheit to 41o Fahrenheit the eggs can be hatched early' After removing them from the cold room and putting in an unheated room for about four to twenty hours to acclimatize them to the change of temperature they are put in an incubator. They stay there for seven to ien davs depending on the breed, at temperatures starting ui 62o'Fahrenheit andlelng raised gradually every iwenty four hours to 72o Fahrenheit at rvhich temperature theY hatch. The worm which hatches from the egg is completely black and about one'tenth of an inch tong. Outeggsthis year, hatched about the thirtieth of Aulust. Tf,E worm is visible through the shell for sevEral days before hatching- On the day before the main hatching a few "scouts" appear as forerunners- The silkworm or "ant" emerges by biting a hole in the egg. On emerging it is discovered that the sitt

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