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%)
page 231 of 766 (30%)
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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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