and women who attend to them, particularly the women, are worn out by
the end of the season. "The women have only three hours' rest in the
twenty-four hours," I remember someone saying. "They never loose their
_obi_."

When the caterpillars emerge from the tiny, pin-head-like eggs of the
silk-worm moth they are minute creatures. Therefore the mulberry
leaves are chopped very fine indeed. They are chopped less and less
fine as the silk-worms grow, until finally whole leaves and leaves
adhering to the shoots are given. Some rearers are skilful enough to
supply from the very beginning leaves or leaves still on the shoots.
The caterpillars live in bamboo trays or "beds" on racks. In the house
of one farmer I found caterpillars about three-quarters of an inch
long occupying fifteen trays. When the silk-worms grew larger they
would occupy two hundred trays.

The eggs, when not produced on the farm, are bought adhering to cards
about a foot square. There are usually marked on these cards
twenty-eight circles about 2 ins. in diameter. Each circle is covered
with eggs. The eggs come to be arranged in these convenient circles
because, as will be explained later on, the moths have been induced to
lay within bottomless round tins placed on the circles on the cards.
The eggs are sticky when laid and therefore adhere. In a year
35,000,000 cards, containing about a billion eggs, are produced on
some 10,000 egg-raising farms.

The eggs--they are called "seed"--are hatched in the spring (end of
April--as soon as the first leaves of the mulberry are available--to
the middle of May), summer (June and July) and autumn (August and
October). It takes from three to seven days--according to