The Fabrication of Silk [pp. 440-444]

Y HE LADIES' REPOSITORY.
THE FABRICATION OF SILK.
,iHE native country of the silk-worm is not
better known than that of the greater
number of plants and animals which form
the staple of agricultural industry. It is pr-obable, however, that its native country was
China. It was certainly in this vast empire
that long since the business of fabricating silk
began. One reads the following in "L'Histoire
generale de la Chine," by le P. Mailla: "The
Emperor Hoang-ti, who lived two thousand and
six hundred years before our era, wished that
Si-ling-chli, his wife, should contribute to the
happiness of his people. He charged her to
study the silk-wxormi, and to try to utilize its
threads. Si-ling-chli caused a great quantity
of these insects to be collected, which she fed
herself, in a place destined exclusively for the
purpose. She not only dliscovered the means
of rearing them, but still further the manner of
winding off their silk and of employing it in the
manufacture of fabrics."
It may be asked, however, if the learned men
who composed this recital did not collect under
the reign of the Emperor Hoang-ti all the events
and all the discoveries whose dates were lost
in the obscurity of the most remote periods
of history. Is not the Empress Si-ling-chli a
inythlical person, a sort of Chinese Ceres, to
wNhom, under the title of goddess of the silkworm, they then raised altars? Here, at any
rate, is how Duhalde analyzes the recital of the
Chinese annalists on the remarkable fact of the
introduction of the silk-worm and its rich products into the Chinese empire: "Up to the time
of this queen [Si-ling-chi]," says he, "when the
country was only lately cleared and broughlt into
cultivation, the people employed the skins of
animals as clothes. But these skins were no
longer sufficient for the multitude of the inhabitants; necessity made them industrious; they
applied themselves to the manufacture of cloth
wherewith to cover themselves. But it was to
this princess that they owed the useful invention of silk stuffs. Afterward the empresses,
named by Chinese authors accordingl to the
order of their dynasties, found an agreeable
occupation in superintending the hatching,
rearing, and feeding of silk-worms, in making
silk, and working it up when made. There
was an inclosure attached to the palace for the
cultivation of mulberry-trees. The empress,
accompanied by queens and the greatest ladies
of the court, went in state into this inclosure,
and gathered with her own hand the leaves of
three branches, which her ladies in waiting had
lowered till they were within her reach. The
finest pieces of silk which she made herself, or
which were made by her orders and under her
own eye, were destined for the ceremony of the
grand sacrifice offered to Chlang-si. It is probable," adds Duhlalde, "that policy had more to
do than any thing else with all this trouble
taken by the empresses. Their intention was
to induce, by their example, the princesses and
ladies of quality, and the whole people, to rear
silk-worms, in the same way as the emperors,
to ennoble in some sort agriculture, and to
encourage the people to undertake laborious
woirks, never failed, at the beginning of each
Spring, to guide the plow in person, and with
great state to plow up a few furrows, and in
these sow some seed. As far as concerns the
empresses, it is a long time since they have
ceased to apply themselves to the manufacture
of silk. One sees, nevertheless, in the precincts of the imperial palace, a large space
covered with houses, the road leading to which
is still called the road which leads to the place
destined for the rearing of silk-worms for the
amusement of the empresses and queens. In
the books of the philosopher Mencius is a
wise police rule, made under the first reigns,
which determines the space destined for tlhe
cultivation of mulberry-trees according to the
extent of the land possessed by each private
individual."
M. Stanislas Julien tells us of many regulations made by the emperor of China to render
obligatory the care and attention requisite to
rearing silk. Tchin-iu, being governor of the
district of Kien-Si, ordered that every man
should plant fifty feet of land with mulberrytrees. The emperor-under the dynasty of
Witei gave to each man twenty acres of land
oni condition that he planted fifty feet with
mulberry-trees. Hien-tsang, who ascended the
thlrone in 806, ordered that the inhabitants of
the country should plant two feet in every acre
with mulberry-trees. The first emperor of the
dynasty of Song, who began to reign about the
year 960, published a decree forbidding his
subjects to cut down the mulberry-trees. By
all these means, according to the testimony
of M. Stanislas Julien, the business of the
fabrication of silk became general in China.
This great empire could soon furnish to its
neighbors this precious textile material, and
create for its own profit a very important
branch of commerce.
It was forbidden, under pain of death, to
export from China the silk-worm's eggs, or to
furnish the necessary information in the art of
obtaining the textile material. The manufactured article only could be sold out of the
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