Silk...the stuff legends are made of, battles fought over, wars won and lost. In Pliny's Natural History, in 70 BC, he wrote "Silk was obtained by removing the down from the leaves with the help of water...". It's easy to understand how he could be so wrong when, for more than two thousand years, the Chinese closely guarded their secret of silk.

Chinese legend says the mythical Yellow Emperor wife, Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, introduced silkworm rearing when her husband ruled China about 3000 BC.  In 1927 a portion of a silkworm cocoon was found in Shanxi Province, Northern China and scientists dated the cocoon between 2600 and 2300 BC. Some archeological finds such as fabric fragments, spinning tools, and thread date sericulture even earlier.

Silkworms are the Bombyx mori in its larval stage, caterpillars, and are the world's only domesticated insect. In four to six days, the blind, flightless Bombyx mori moth will lay five hundred or more eggs and then dies. One hundred eggs weigh one gram and one ounce of eggs will render 30,000 worms who will eat a ton of mulberry leaves and produce twelve pounds of raw silk. It's possible this cultivated species came from a silk moth called the Bombyx mandarina Moore which is unique to China. It lives on leaves from the white mulberry tree and its filament thread is finer, rounder and smoother than other silk moths. The specialized silk producer of today, the Bombyx mori has lost all instincts save for mating and producing eggs to continue silk production.

In order to produce exceptional silk several things must happen...the human must give constant and close attention, a specialized diet of fresh, chopped mulberry leaves must be fed to the worms after they hatch and a fixed temperature must be maintained.

Eggs are kept at 65 degrees F and hatched out at a gradually increased

temperature of 77 degrees. At this point, the worms are fed the mulberry leaves until they are fat with worms being kept on stacked trays. It's said a roomful of worms eating sounds like rain on the roof. The first month, the silkworm will multiply its weight ten thousand times and shed its skin several times. During this period, they must be protected from any disturbances such as loud noises, strong odors or drafts. They eat until they have stored energy for the cocoon stage and spend three or four days spinning a cocoon around themselves. Their silk glands product a jelly-like substance and they spin their cocoon until they look like white, puffy balls.

When the cocoons are ready to be unwound they are baked or steamed to kill the pupas and a hot water dip loosens the tightly woven silk to be unwound onto a spool. Each filament is between 600 and 900 meters long and five to eight of these filaments are plied to make a thread.  The silks threads are ready for dyeing or can be used naturally in embroidery work or woven into cloth. Silk is cool in hot weather and warm in cool weather.

This is a teaser, meant to whet your appetite to search out more information on silk. Of course, check out Michael Cook's website, www.wormspit.com as well as

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/silkhistory.shtml and http://mothmaster.netfirms.com/Silkmoths2.htm.