World Ark Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 22) In southern China’s Lezhi County there are about 120 million mulberry trees to feed the silkworms. Wu Yuantian and his wife, Wen Yongquing, stand in their barn sorting silkworms. “Before I was not so hard-working, and my wife was always angry with me. Now she doesn’t get mad so easily because I am working hard.” Sericulture Sericulture is the practice of raising silkworms and producing silk. Though the larvae of several species of moths produce silk, it is Bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm, that spins the finest quality silk. The species no longer occurs in the wild and, since they cannot fl y, are completely dependent on humans to provide everything from food to assistance in reproducing. The larvae are fed a steady diet of mulberry leaves and can consume 10,000 times their hatch-weight. Once they are fully formed, the cocoons are harvested and boiled. Boiling the cocoon makes it easier to unwind the silk fiber. It also kills the pupa inside. But if the silk moth were allowed to emerge from the cocoon, much of the valuable silk would be destroyed. The long fibers are unwound and cleaned in preparation for spinning and weaving. It takes about 3,000 cocoons to make one pound of silk. 22 March/April 2008 | WORLD ARK www.heifer.org http://www.heifer.org
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.