Chapter 10

Let any one who doubts this consider the dairy work and similar industries, and try to calculate how much per diem the women thus occupied at home gain in money. It may be said with entire accuracy that, as a rule, anything in which the women can engage at home, by which something may be earned, will in general be regarded as net profit through out many sections of the land. In the silk districts of Europe, agricultural machinery is very much less employed than with us, and in general every woman who can possibly be spared from other work is a field laborer and valuable as such. So that time taken for raising silk must be deducted from her other productive work and charged to the cost of the silk crop. I think that there can be no doubt that this one fact is quite sufficient to make the question of the cost of caring for the worms really as much in favor of the United States as at first glance it appears to be the other way; it being the case that in our country many who would be glad to do the work have spare time to give to it, whereas in Europe every hour that is given to silk worms would otherwise be spent in the field.

In the South there are very large masses of inhabitants who are unable to work in the fields, both men and women, and who would also find in a yearly crop of silk worms a very comfortable addition to their yearly gains, and one which could be derived from time not otherwise convertible into money. Land is very much dearer, and taxes are higher in the European silk districts than with us, and every little crop of cocoons has to pay its share, which adds a considerable percentage to its cost.

The buildings possessed by peasants and used for the raising of silk worms are, in general, small, close, and miserable. Throughout America the roomy barns which are empty at the cocoon season, will, with little preparation, be much preferable, and enable the raisers to work to very much better advantage.

In Europe diseases of several kinds have become more or less prevalent, and in some cases have diminished the production of whole districts.

Notwithstanding the fact that many experiments have been made in America, and in Georgia particularly, and silk has been raised continuously for over a century, these diseases (_maladies des vers a soile_) have never made their appearance.

The people of our country are, as a rule, much better educated than those in Southern France and Italy, and will undoubtedly use their intelligence in such a way as to derive a benefit from it, and economize their labor by proper appliances, etc.

Taking all these facts into consideration, I am convinced that that there will be no difficulty in raising cocoons for the same cost in labor in the United States as in Europe, and I am inclined to think that the work can be much more cheaply done.

It is true that the United States is not an especially good market for cocoons; in fact up to this time there has been scarcely any market at all for them; but with the organization of the industry and the introduction of reeling machinery, the market will be at least as good there as elsewhere. As to whether it will be "worth while" for our people to raise silk worms, I would say that though the amount of money to be paid by any one family is certainly not very large, it is nearly all clear profit, and under the circumstances which I have above pointed out, and which exist so generally, I am sure that the sum to be realized will be regarded as very important by a vast number of people. As in other points, it is extremely difficult to make any exact estimates on such a subject which would be generally applicable to a country so large and so various in climate, soil, and social habit as ours. I am inclined to think, however, that were the members of an average family, under average circumstances, to raise a crop of cocoons, the amount which could be advantageously reared should produce, according to circumstances, from seventy-five to two hundred dollars. Scarcely any "paying" result can be hoped for, however, without more or less organization of the work, as sericulture is an industry which is very sensitive to the evils of a want of proper co-operation among those who carry on its various processes. After some reflection, I am of the opinion that individual growers will have great difficulty in selling cocoons if they are isolated from others, and I therefore doubt the wisdom of encouraging sporadic and ill-directed efforts, which, however well meant and earnestly pursued, are much more apt to end in disappointment, discouragement, and discredit to the newly developing industry than in anything else. It seems to me to be neither wise nor fair to furnish estimates of returns, which presuppose an organization of the industry, without mentioning the difficulties which must be encountered where the organization is lacking. The great difficulty is in selling the cocoons after they are raised, and this can only be practically overcome by such a development of the culture as will result in the production, within the limits of a given neighborhood, of sufficient quantities of cocoons to make it practicable to prepare and forward them to market. It is as well known as any other fact in trade, that small transactions are much more costly in proportion than large ones, and this general rule is especially applicable to the cocoon market. The product of two or three isolated families in the interior of our country could not be marketed to advantage. Whereas, were several hundreds engaged on the work in the same vicinity the charge of marketing their joint crop would be only a small percentage of its value.

Silk raising is the work of an organized people, and before it can become successful in our country must possess proper channels for its trade, just as much as wool, or cotton, or wheat. The machinery of this organization, however, need not be either complicated or expensive. What is required is a system of nuclei in towns or large villages, which may serve as centers of information and as gathering receptacles for the crops of surrounding producers.

The details of organization must be left, and I think may safely be left to the good sense of the people of different sections, who will work out the problem in different ways, according to their different circumstances. Even were the need of organization not made evident to those undertaking sericulture in the beginning, it would soon become so, as it has, in fact, in several parts of the country. I have therefore deemed it proper to call attention to this matter, on the principle that a "stitch in time saves nine." I am informed that there exist already in the United States several associations devoted to acquiring and disseminating knowledge of the art of sericulture. This is a very great step in the right direction, and cannot be too heartily commended. If conducted with prudence and wisdom these societies will be of great service, and I would respectfully suggest that any encouragement which the government may think proper to afford would in all probability be extremely useful and profitable to the country in the future. Provided, always, that such societies are really devoted to the dissemination of information and the careful organization of the industry, and are not merely visionary and impractical cultivators of misapplied enthusiasm.

It would, I think, be of importance so far as possible, to direct the attention of county and State agricultural societies, "village improvement clubs," and in general the intelligent and careful portion of our rural population to this matter. It is beyond doubt that the time when sericulture can be begun and carried on profitably in our country has arrived. Its successful introduction would result in a very important yearly revenue and increase in the public wealth, for I think that within a comparatively few years it could be made to be worth at least fifty or sixty millions of dollars per annum, and perhaps much more. This, however, is a less advantage than the fact that by supplying a new home industry it would do much toward conserving home ties and interests, and thereby help to strengthen and perpetuate good morals and home living among our people.

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THE HIBERNATION OF ANIMALS.

"Don't black bears sleep through the winter?" questioned the writer of an attendant who was dealing out mid-day rations of bread and milk at the park.

"That's the general impression," was the rejoinder, "but we have never noticed any attempts at hibernation here. Bears are unusually lively during the cold months, and demand their food as regularly as do the lions and other feline animals. I don't know that any observations of value on this question have ever been made on animals in confinement. I have had some experience with outside animals, and a great many go through what is called a winter's sleep; and in warm countries there is what might be called a summer sleep. Bears begin in the fall to look out for a soft nest; and if it's possible for them to eat more at one time than another they do it then, and when the cold weather sets in they are fat and in prime condition. According to some authorities, the fat produces the carbon that in some way tends to induce somnolency. The stomach of a bear at this time becomes empty, and naturally shrivels or draws into a very small space, and is rendered totally useless by a substance called 'tappen' that clogs it and the intestines; this is formed of pine leaves and other material that the animal takes from ants' nest and the trunks of trees in its search after honey. They lie asleep in this condition for about six months, generally snowed in; but you can tell the place, as the heat of the bear, what there is left, keeps an air hole up through the snow. The bear seems to live on its fat, the tappen preventing its too rapid consumption; and if you run across them during this time--even along in March just before they wake up--they are about as fat as when they went in. I have taken a slice of fat from a black bear six inches thick--regular blubber. I remember," continued the man, "one winter I was 'log hauling' in the western part of this State. We had our eyes on a big tree, and one morning when it was about ten degrees below zero I tackled it to warm up. I hammered away for about five hours at it and finally started her, and over she came--slowly at first, and then as if she was going right through. The snow was nearly three feet deep, and as the tree struck it flew up for about twenty feet and half blinded me, and when I came to there was the biggest black bear I ever saw standing along side of me, looking about as mixed as I did. I had lost my ax, and the first move I made she started, and on taking a look I found that she had a nest in the trunk and had probably turned in for the winter. It was about twenty feet from the ground, and was built with moss, leaves, and all kinds of truck, and as warm and as snug as you please--a good place to spend a winter in."

The brown and polar bears have the same habit of lying up for the winter. An Esquimau informed Captain Lyon that in the first of the winter the pregnant bears are always fat and solitary. When a heavy fall of snow sets in the animal seeks some hollow place in which she can lie down, and remains quiet while the snow covers her. Sometimes she will wait until a quantity of snow has fallen and then digs herself a cave; at all events it seems necessary that she should be covered up by the snow. She now goes to sleep and does not wake until the spring sun is pretty high, when she brings forth two cubs. The cave by this time has become much larger by the effect of the animal's warmth and breath, so that the cubs have room enough to move, and they acquire considerable strength by continually sucking. The dam at length becomes so thin and weak that it is with great difficulty she extricates herself, which she does when the sun is powerful enough to throw a strong glare through the snow which roofs the den. Then the family comes out, and will take anything that comes along in the way of food. During the long sleep the temperature of the bear's blood is reduced to almost that of the surrounding air. The power of will over the muscles seems to be suspended, respiration is hardly noticeable, and most of the vital functions are at a complete standstill--the entire body sleeping, as it were. The male grizzly bear never hibernates. The young and the females, however, build nests, one of which measured ten feet high, five feet long, and six feet wide.

Bats are great winter sleepers, and in most of the known caves they can be found during the cold months clinging to the walls and to each other. During hibernation their respiration ceases almost entirely, and only the most careful use of a stethoscope can reveal it. The air that has surrounded numbers of them has been carefully examined and not the slightest evidence found of its having been breathed; and, stranger yet, they can exist in this condition in gas, that, were they awake, would prove instantly fatal. A machine has been invented to examine these and other animals while in this condition. A delicate index records the slightest pulsation, while a thermometer shows the rise and fall of the temperature at every moment during the period; and by an arrangement of the wing, the circulation of the blood is recorded. A more delicate experiment can hardly be imagined, as a strong breath, a sneeze, or a footfall will cause the subject of the experiment to recover enough to respire several times; and the effect of this on the machine can be imagined when it is known that though, while in this condition, they produce no effect upon the oxygen of the air about them, they consume when respiring more than four cubic inches of oxygen an hour.

The common marmot is a great underground sleeper. They build large storehouses, sometimes eight feet in diameter, and from the latter part of September to April they lie in them, and, like the bears, give birth to their young during this period.

The dormouse is a remarkable sleeper. Even in their ordinary sleep they can be taken from the nest and handled without waking them. Toward winter they acquire a great deal of fat, and stow away a vast amount of provision around about their nest, and then go to sleep within; but they rarely awake to use this food unless a very warm period comes around before the regular breaking up of cold weather.

The hedgehog is a sound winter sleeper, and has been the subject of an infinite number of experiments while in this condition. One experimentalist, believing that cold was the cause of their curious condition, surrounded one with a freezing mixture, and froze it to death. By increasing the cold about another that was already hibernating, it was made to wake up; and walked off.

If an animal is suddenly decapitated while in this hibernating condition, the action of the heart is not affected for some time, a second life seeming to outlive the one taken. An experiment has been made in which the brain of the sleeper was removed, then the entire spinal cord, but for two hours hardly any change was noticeable upon the action of the heart; and a day after that organ contracted when touched by the operator.

The writer has the winter nest of a family of ants. A piece of fence rail was found beneath an old pile of boards and brought into a warm room for the sake of a rich fungus growing upon it, and several hours after the table and chairs were found to be covered with ants. Where they came from was a mystery, until the old rail was accidentally jarred and a number fell from it. A section was cut down through it, and the winter home of the tribe destroyed--probably the work of weeks, perhaps months. The interior of the wood was completely riddled by tunnels and passages, some being large and holding several hundred ants, while others contained only a few. In some of the interior passages the ants had not been affected by the heat, and were packed in great masses and evidently fast asleep; they soon recovered, however, and walked off slowly in different directions, as if wondering if an earthquake or spring had come.

A great number of insects go through a period of hibernation, especially spiders. The young of the latter are often covered by the parent; first, by coarse strings of silk, as if to hold them in place, and then by a white, silvery web worked over them, which forms probably a sure protection from wind and weather.

The writer has a cherry-stone in which is coiled up an insect, best known as the sowbug. A squirrel had probably eaten out the meat and opened the way, and in this snug retreat we found the little hibernater snugly rolled up, as is also its habit when alarmed. The mouth of the hole was stopped by black soil, but whether from accident or by the animal itself we could not tell.

Some fishes and reptiles are hibernaters. Frogs and toads sleep out the winter at the bottom of ponds or in holes in the ground. Tree toads, if kept in a cage in the winter and provided with soil, will endeavor to cover themselves with it, showing how strong the instinct or habit is. Some fishes are so insensible to heat or cold that when in this condition they can be frozen and carried for a number of days and then be brought back to an active condition. The pond snail passes into a winter sleep as soon as the temperature of the water is below 14° Cent., that is, they will not digest food or grow until the temperature of the water is at least up to 15° Cent. Those who have watched the Harlem River from McComb's Dam Bridge cannot have failed to notice the curious appearance of the muddy shores of the river and creeks at low tide. If the sun shines brightly, the dismal beach seems to quiver and scintillate in a most beautiful manner, reflecting the light like so many diamonds. If we draw nearer, this shore is seen to be entirely covered in places with little snails, that, left by the tide, are forging through the mud to regain the water, and the sunlight striking on them is reflected by the glass-like secretion with which they are covered, producing the curious effect noticed. This could be seen in the warm months, but now, not a snail of the countless millions can be seen. They have gone down in search of "hard-pan," there to hibernate until next April. The land snail (_Helix pomatia_) sleeps four months during the year, and does not throw off the calcareous lid that protects it during this time until the day temperature has reached 12° Cent. Prairie dogs feel the effect of temperature as low as this.

In Cuba reptiles hibernate between 7° and 24° Cent., according to the species. In warmer countries, snakes, lizards, frogs, etc., fall into a state called chill coma that precisely resembles winter sleep, but their temperature is far above that at which hibernating animals of the north are still active. The state of hibernation is not the direct result of an extreme of heat or cold, but rather is caused by a departure from the optimum. In the snail its normal temperature is about the same as the water, and being a poor heat producer it is not surprising that when the water grows colder the animal is forced to succumb; but it is a remarkable fact that warm-blooded animals like many of the above-mentioned, whose bodies are maintained by internal processes at a high temperature of 26° to 38°, are incapable of resisting the lowering influence of cold. The fall in temperature in some is wonderful; as an example, the high body temperature of warm-blooded animals may be said to oscillate between 36° and 43° Cent. (this includes man). Experiments made with the zizel show that during hibernation this animal's temperature is only 2° Cent., the lowest known; and a thermometer introduced into the animal indicated the same, showing that warm-blooded animals in hibernating become truly cold blooded animals. If a rabbit's temperature reaches 15° Cent., it will die. The germs of bryozoa or of the fresh water sponges resist any amount of cold, but the full grown forms die at the first cold turn. Insects are destroyed, but their eggs live, though of the greatest possible delicacy. Salmon eggs have been carried from this State to Australia, and there hatched. In fact, some animals live in the ice, as the glacier flea and several others.

As it is not the direct result of extremes of heat or cold that produces sleep, neither is the awakening from hibernation directly caused by a rise of temperature. In experiments made upon weasels, which are sometimes caught asleep, one came to life in about three hours, during which the temperature of the room remained the same as it had been during the entire hibernation, viz., 10° Cent. In another weasel, during the awakening, the body temperature rose very rapidly--and more so in the second part of the period than in the first. In the first hour and fifty-five minutes of the awakening the body temperature rose 6.6° Cent, and in the following fifty minutes it rose 17° Cent. This remarkable increase took place without any vigorous movements on the part of the weasel. Even its breathing showed no increase in proportion to the rise. These cases show that though, at certain seasons, animals relax as it were and lie dormant, and recover, seemingly at the will of the weather, yet, in point of fact, the rise and fall of temperature has no direct effect upon them. The cause is an internal one, awaiting discovery.--C. F. HOLDER, in _Forest and Stream_.

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What is described as the largest steel sailing ship afloat was lately launched at Belfast, Ireland. It registers 2,220 tons, and has been named the Garfield. It will be employed in the Australian and California trade.

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THE TIDES.

London _Nature_, in a recent issue, says: From a scientific point of view, the work done by the tides is of unspeakable importance. Whence is this energy derived with which the tides do their work? If the tides are caused by the moon, the energy they possess must also be derived from the moon. This looks plain enough, but unfortunately it is not true. Would it be true to assert that the finger of the rifleman which pulls the trigger supplies the energy with which the rifle bullet is animated? Of course it would not. The energy is derived from the explosion of gunpowder, and the pulling of the trigger is merely the means by which that energy is liberated.