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Updated: May 8, 2025
To the last specimen, the new-born Silk-worms died of hunger. My renown as a quack must have suffered somewhat from this check. Was it really my fault? No, it was the fault of the Silk-worm, which remained faithful to its mulberry leaf.
But nothing now could be more desolate than the rows of unending mulberry-trees, pruned down to the stumps, through which we rode all the afternoon. I suppose they look better when the branches grow out with the tender leaves for the silk-worms, and when they are clothed with grapevines. Padua was only to us a name.
"We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use; such as are with you your silk-worms and bees. "I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake-houses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare and of special effects.
I tried, however, taking botany as my guide; it suggested to me, as substitutes for the mulberry, the members of closely-related families: the elm, the nettle-tree, the nettle, the pellitory. Their nascent leaves, chopped small, were offered to the Silk-worms. Other and far less logical attempts were made, in accordance with the inspiration of the individuals. Nothing came of them.
Now, as on an average it takes about 3,500 silk-worms to produce a pound of silk, it would take about 22,000 spiders to produce an equal quantity. Besides, spiders are not so easily confined as silk-worms, and whenever two come in contact, a battle ensues, which ends in the destruction of the weaker one.
It is not many years since the Nissards learned the culture of silk-worms, of their neighbours the Piedmontese; and hitherto the progress they have made is not very considerable: the whole county of Nice produces about one hundred and thirty-three bales of three hundred pounds each, amounting in value to four hundred thousand livres.
But up to the present time no progress has been made in it in that country, although silk-worms are found in a natural state in the forests of the Union. Indeed, it seems a pursuit which needs cheap attentive labour as well as suitable climate. Some attempts have been made in Australia, but there again the latter question presents an insurmountable obstacle.
Godefroid learned all these details in about an hour's time; for the widow took him everywhere, and showed him the whole building, explaining its transformation into a dwelling. Until 1828 it had been a nursery for silk-worms, less for the silk than to obtain what they call the eggs.
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