Bobby Loo, age 9, of Lemon Grove, Calif'
How do silkworms make silk?
The adult silkworm is a fat, furry moth. This is the fourth and final stage of his complicated life. He starts out as a little polo egg which hatches into a wormy caterpillar. The hungry caterpillar feeds entirely on mulberry loaves until he his molted four times. Then ho goes into a beauty sleep inside a cocoon. This cocoon is wound from a long thread of softest silk. It is the silk we use to make cloth.
The silkworm has bean tame for thousands of years. He has been so pampered that ha could no longer survive without help. So he must be raised with loving care by the silk farmer. Silk farming is called sericulture and is carried on in Japan, China, Brazil, Italy and several other countries where the mulberry tree grows and whore the people have endless patience.
A small silk crop begins with an ounce of eggs laid by a fuzzy silkworm moth. For about six weeks their home is a warm dry room with plenty of fresh air and no sudden noises. The little fellows are very fussy, indeed.
The eggs hatch in a few days. They become tiny caterpillars, or silkworms. These hungry mites are placed on trays around the walls of the room. The trays are lined with wire netting, on top of which are sheets of clean paper. Everything must be carefully cleaned ovary day, for the pampered darling tend to catch diseases.
The one ounce of eggs produces about 40,000 silkworms. The tiny fellows are planed in the tray and covered with sheets of perforated paper. They climb up through the holes and. dine on mined mulberry loaves.
In about five days the silkworms have grown too big for their skins. They must molt. Feeding stops while they burst their skins. They are now larger and reedy for more solid food. They must have whole mulberry leaves, dry and slightly wilted. Nothing else will do.
The silkworms eat, grow and molt four times. During this time the job of cleaning, feeding and. tending to them is never done. Altogether the 10,000 eat about one ton of mulberry leaves, After the 1^st molt the hungry fellows eat twice their weight in food every day.
They are not only building up their bodies for the long sloop ahead but they are manufacturing liquid. silk in glands near the tail. At last they are ready to pupate. Feeding stops and the silkworms seem dazed. Clusters of dry sticks are placed over them and the little fellows crawl up and start to spin. The silkworm winds his cocoon round and round in a figure eight and then goes to sloop.
Each cocoon is a thread of silk a half mils long. The 10,000 silkworms produce about 12 pounds of raw silk. The cocoons are baked to destroy the little follows inside before the silk is unwound. A few are saved to hatch into moths who will produce more eggs.