(Copyrighted. 1902, by Frank Q. Carpenter )
lHEKIANO, China, Jan. 6. (Special
C. I Correspondence of The Bee.)
1 Ml. - kill I Va - tL.
i inn wniiru in iu uvftri vi iuv
ailk regions of China. For a week
I hare been floating along through
one canal after another wltfi Consul Gen
eral Ooodnow In hla home boat through a
country which U on vast orchard of mul
berry treea. There are thouaandi of theae
treea on every aide of me ai I write, and
by getting off on the bank and climbing to
the top of one of the bridges which ar?h
the canal at every few miles I can aee
treea by the mllltoni, extending on and on
until they cut the horizon. They border
the waterway! and are only broken heie
and there.' by clump of peach treea or the
taller shade tree of aome farm Tillage and
the pit-like fields flooded for raising rice.
Bilk Is produced In almost every part of
China, but Chekiang produces more and
better silk than any other. ' It raises vast
quantities of cocoons every year for export
to France, Germany and Japan and batas
of raw silk go from here to our factories In
the United Statea. There are thousands of
farm houses In which silk reeling If done
and great silk filatures with the finest of
modern machinery put up by the French,
English and other foreigners, as well as by
the Chinese, to turn the cocoons Into thread.
The Chinees use more silk themselves than
any other people; they have tens of thou
sands of looms, and their silk millionaire
ara numbered by scores.
the Malberry Trees.
I wish you cculd be with me in this ride
Chekiang, the Richest Silk Region of Asia
sprouta have reached aeveral feet in h.i.t
they are transplanted Ave or six feet apart
In regular rows. This la done In December.
After this the treea are carefully cared for.
They are pruned year after year, and never
allowed to grow mere than alx feet in
height. The cutting does not injure th?m.
A sound mulberry tree will last for fifty
years, and when fully matured will annually
yield aa much as 100 pounds of leaves. In
some psrta of Chekiang the seeds of ths
wild mulberry are sown and the young
sprouts grafted from the cultivated mul
berry. This Is thought to produce better
leaves.
The trees have to be carefully watched
for Insects. There are silk tree borers muc!i
like cur peach tree borers, worms which
can enter the bark and must be dug out,
and there are Insects which eat the leavea
and must be killed by fumigating or spray
ing. Rearing; Bilk Warms.
I have been Interested In learning bow
the Chinese rear silk worms. They have
reduced the business to a aclence, and It la
atill so Important that the empress starta
It every year. Indeed, the first silk worms
of China were reared by an empress. This
waa the wife of Hwang-tl. who lived 1.600
B. C, and who Is known aa the goddess of
silk. The present empress sacrifices to
her every April In the palace grounds.
April is the best time for hatching silk
eggs, and It is at this time that the moths
are started laying. The Chinese can tell
the male moths from the female ones while
they ars still In the cocoons. Thsy know
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PARTIAL VISW OF A SILK FACTORY IN THIS ROOM 700 GIRLS WERE REELING SILK.
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'-.: ) SOOCHOW SILK FILATURE, OPERATED AND OWNED BY CHINESE.
through the mulberry orchards. Our mul- just how to handle them ao they will lay until a new and large skin Is fully matured,
berry tree grows about aa big as an elm, at the proper time. In soma placea the They are full grown at the age of thirty
and It Is not out of place among the treea eggs are laid on clean paper and in others two days, and ars then the color of amber,
of the forest The mulberry treea here are on white linen or graaa cloth. Each worm Is now about two inchea long
small. Most of them are trimmed down One moth will lay'aa many as S00 eggs, and about as big around aa your little
to four feet, the sprouts being cut off year This Job takes her seventy-four hour, finger, and it la ready for Its work of mak-after-
year. The orchards look more like after which she lives five or six days with- ing silk.
thickets than forests, and the treea are eel- out eating and then dies. It Is Important After this the silk worm takes no more
dom larger than a three-year-old peach to have good eggs, and the strongest co- food and begtns to spin from Us mouth,
tree. . They are as knotty and gnarly as an coons are cbosen for the purpose. v The first fattening the thread to a frame on
olive tree and aa ragged as a quince bush, eggs are first washed and then sprinkled . which It Is placed. It moves Its head from
They are planted In rowa only a few feet with salt. They are next covered With one side to the other and keeps on doing
apart and ao carefully cultivated that not ashes of burnt mulberry leaves, and ao kept so until it has woven a cocoon about It
a weed Is to be seen anywhere. Here and for ten days, after which time they are body. Thla requires from two to five days,
there garden stuff la. raised between the ready for hatching. - and at the end it again goes to sleep,
trees but nothing grows closs to the trunks In many silk districts the people have In the province of Chekiang the spinning
and a continual fertilising and hoeing goee human Incubators. The warmth of the is done in what Is knbwn as silk worm bills,
on the year around. All kinds of manura body furnishes the heat, the most approved Theae are bundles of straw placed on mats
are used, but the chief fertiliser comes from variety being a lusty woman, who pUta the on platforms about as high aa your waist,
the canals which are fed by the Yangtae eggs Inside her clothes upon her bare bosom The worms crawl up on the straw and
river. The Yaagtse Klang la aa full of silt nd keeps them there until she knows by fasten themselves to It and there spin their
aa the Nile. It brings down vast quantities their tickling that the silk worms are com- cocoons. About 100 worms are attached to
of. rich mud every year, and dropa It Into Ing out. The silk worms are as fine as a each bundle, and fires are built around tha
ths canals. The Chinese dredge thla out thread and black when first hatched. The tablea that they may be kept warm. While
and spread It over the ground. They scoop hatching usually takes place between 8 they are spinning the notss Is like that of
It up In nets or in canvas bags with heavy o'clock In the morning and noon. In other a aoft shower of rain and when the noise
Iron rings about them. They have great placea the egga are hatched In warm cham- stops the people know the cocoons are
tonga mads of bamboo poles with spoon- hers and In other ways. completed. After this they are baked or
Ilk baskets on tha ends, looking for all The first silk eggs taken to Europe were boiled. In order to kill the worms and ars
the world Ilk giant sugar tonga, with carried to Constantinople In bamboo tubea then ready for reeling, or for sale,
which they pinch up a quart of mud at a nd hatched In a manure heap. In the smnaT the Cocooaa.
time and pull It into their boats. Later on hatching rooms and also in those where min far.,. ,v.
they throw It on the banks and spread It the hatched worm, are kept the tempera- JjmCJJ
around th tree., covering th, whole sur- tur. Is not tested by a thermometer, but by h?LtZ?tLm in bull
fac of th ground. Th Chlneae sav every man who take, off hi. cloth.a and goes "
bit of fertilising material. ve. to their In naked In order to tell b, th. .en..tton. J tTlni
hair cutting, and finger nail paring.. I ... produced M-M, " W o'tnr ,ra"'s toi fflF&j
th chlldrw .v.rywh.r going about and r and moisture. w uppIy
picking up filthy .tuff of all kind, to add As Del.eat as Babies. lag oplum ,nd ,alt. Th, ,0rnm.nt en-
10 th manure beans. Th lHk ar watche M carefully courages the people to raise silk worm, and
Hew tke Coaatry Looks. M though they were tables. Flies are kept urges them to plant mulberry treea. The
I frequently get out aad walk through the from them. No lo'ld talking 1. permitted result Is that almost every farmer has his
orchards- There are no roads anywhere. near them, and the people wash themselvee little orchard, and the vast product of silk
You could not possibly rids over the coun- carefully before handling them. Thunder produced in China cornea from small farm
try In a cart, for many of the field are is Mid to alarm them, and only clean hand era. Many a man does not raise more than
pita made at different levela so that they must touch the leavea. whfch feed them twenty pounds of cocoons, for which he
may be flooded from time to tlm as the Th leaves must be out Into fine shrods and gets, perhaps, $4 or S3 In silver,
srops demand. There, are only footpaths the worms eat them ao rapidly that you can The cocoona must be bought within a
between th fields, and these wind about hear their Jaws going. At first they are fed abort lime after they are offered for sale,
going thla way and that without regard to four time a day, and on tha fifth day they It used to be that fifteen days wer set
distance. The only highway are the go to sleep. Aa they grow older they are aside for selling cocoons, but of lata the
canals, which are filled with t radio even aa fed ones an hour and when they have farmers in some way or other havs short
ths country roads of our rich farming die- reached their full growth they eat three or ened thla down to four days. Th. result la
trlcts are filled with wagons. four meal, a day. They keep on feeding that the foreign and Chlneae allk maker.
Tt ' "-'th aa Interpreter I have learned and sleeping until they are three week, old, muat have their men on hand at this time
tow .ulberry treea are grown. Ths seeds casting their skins at sack aleep, and then to buy the cocoons,
are iet planted la Bureerles and when the go Into a long last aleep, where they remain There are regular market eon tars t
which the farmers come with their silk.
They will go from buyer to buyer and
dicker until they get the highest prices,
and the buying ia therefore exciting. Each
merchant haa his own scales and he buy.
by the ounce or pound, paying spot cash.
This necessitates a large capital, aa all
the cocoona used for the year muat be
bought when the sales are on. There are
silk factorlea In thla region which spend
annually $200,000 In gold in purchasing co
coons. They have to fix their price accord
ing to the selling prices of silk In Europe,
and a sudden fall will make them lose
money. On the other hand, a rise may
give them an enormous profit.
How the Chlaese Make Silk.
Much of th allk of China ia woven in
the homes of the people. I see reeling
going on In many of the farm villages. It
Is done chiefly by the women, the cocoons
being kept for the time In clean boiling
water. They are stirred around in thla
water until the thread ends become loos
ened and then aeveral of these ends are
joined together and the cocoona reeled off
on rude reels worked by pedals. If one
of the threads breaka It ia joined together
or replaced by another. It requlrea con
siderable skill to do the reeling, for the
thread when completed must be of equal
thickness and brightness. A good reeler
can muke about twenty-six ounces of fine
silk In a day.
The weaving, aa done by the natlvea out
side the factorlea. Is on machinery of the
rudeat description. Everything goes by
hand, from ribbons to velvets and fine bro
cades. I see women and girls making rib
bons In all the cities of this region and
In some placea find them weaving satins
and velvets. At Nanking I went through
the Imperial looms which weave satins and
velvets for the emperor, the empress
dowager and the court. They make about
200,000 pieces there every year, or Bilks
to the value of about $2,000,000. It is Im
possible to buy the goods except in an un
derhand way, for all of it Is supposed to
go to the Imperial household. The wages
of the weavers are about 20 cents a day,
with rice. The ribbons are usually made
on email looms by women and young girls,
who get about 10 cents a day and food.
There are in all about 200 looms In the
Imperial establishment, from which were
woven 'during the year of the emperor's
marriage $3,000,000 worth of goods.
China's Madera 811k Factories.
Within the past few years an enormous
s mount has been Invested here In modern
silk lilaturee devoted to reeling the co
coons and making raw silk for export.
These establishments have the finest of
modern machinery, Imported from Europe,
and their business runs high into the mil
lions of dollars. There are twenty-five
such filatures In Shanghai alone, employ
ing all told more than 20,000 hands. There
are some In Hankow, Soochow and at other
places in the eilk regions.
Most of these filatures are owned and
operated by Chinese, although five at
Shanghai have foreign managers. It was
through the Introduction of Mr. Rlva, a
French proprietor of one of the Shanghai
establishments, that I was able to go
through the Chinese filature at Soochow.
This filature has a brick building cover
ing about Ave acres. It employes 800
hands and Its capital must be at least
$500,000. The Chinese heads of the estab
lishment who took me through the filature
(Continued on Eighth Page.)
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CHINESE FACTORY GIRLS THEY WORK FOR FROM t TO 10 CENTS PER