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The Foundations of Japan - Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As - A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People by J.W. Robertson Scott
page 231 of 766 (30%)
From men we went to machines and mulberries. I inspected all sorts of
hot chambers for killing cocoons. I saw, in rooms draped in black
velvet like the pictured scenes at a beheading, silk testing for
lustre and colour. I gazed with respect on many kinds of winding and
weaving machinery. Then, going out into the experiment fields, I
strode through more varieties of mulberry than I had imagined to
exist. There are supposed to be 500 sorts in the country but many are
no doubt duplicates. The varieties differ so much in shape and texture
of leaf that the novice would not take some of them for mulberries.

It was held that it would not be difficult to increase the mulberry
area in Japan by another quarter of a million acres. The yield of
leaves might be raised by 3,300 lbs. per acre if the right sort of
bushes were always grown and the right sort of treatment were given to
them and to the soil. As to the additional labour needed for an
extended sericulture, the annual increase in the population of Japan
would provide it. I was told that "the technics of sericulture are
sure to improve." It would be easy to raise the yield 2 _kwan_ per egg
card for the whole country. Within a seven-year period the production
of cocoons per egg card had become 20 per cent. better. The talk was
of doubling the present yield of cocoons. The "proper encouragement"
needed for doubling the production of cocoons was more technical
instruction and more co-operative societies. There had been a
continual rise in the world's demand for silk and there was no need to
fear "artificial silk." "People who buy it often come to appreciate
natural silk." And I read in an official publication that "the climate
of Japan is suitable for the cultivation of mulberry trees from
south-west Formosa to Hokkaido in the north."

FOOTNOTES:
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