SILK WORKERS
The chief wealth-earning domestic industry carried on by farmers' wives
and daughters is the rearing of silkworms and the reeling, spinning, and
weaving of the silk. Japan supplies about 28 per cent. of the total silk
of the world and 60 per cent. of that used in the United States. The
value of the silk exported in 1913 was $63,000,000. Women are the chief
workers, contributing 90 per cent. of the labor. Here again the toil is
taxing beyond belief.
The brunt of the work consists first in filling the mouths of the worms,
which must be fed at regular intervals night and day for about three
weeks, during the last few days of which they eat continuously and
voraciously. It has been found that the rearing of worms can best be
done only on a small scale, where minute attention can be given to
each tray, almost to each worm. This means that worms are reared in the
homes of the people, rather than in large establishments. During the
silkworm season everything else must give way; the house is filled with
trays of ravenous worms; rest, recreation, and sleep, for old and young
alike, are neglected in order that the precious worms may get their
fill. Men and boys bring in the mulberry leaves from the hills and
fields, while women and girls strip the branches, chop the leaves and
feed them to the magic creatures that transform worthless green leaves
into costly silk. The leaves must not be damp, nor old, and every
condition of weather and temperature must be watched with the closest
care. Otherwise there is loss. This heavy work comes twice each year, in
some places three times. That is to say, there are two or three crops of
silkworms.
Then, after the cocoons have been formed, comes the reeling off of the
silk, as much as possible before the sleeping grub wakens and eats its
way out, destroying the silk it has spun for its nest. So again there is
pressure, and again women do the work--I never heard of a man reeling
silk. It takes the deft hand and quick eye of a girl to catch the thread
in the boiling water, connect it with the wheel, and unroll without
breaking the almost invisible thread so wonderfully wound up by the
worm. This work is often done in the homes, but increasingly now,
because more profitably, in factories where the girls can be closely
watched by inspectors and paid according to the skill and the amount of
their work.
The number of families engaged exclusively in raising silk in the nine
principal districts is reported (1911) at 370,332. In addition however
there are many tens of thousands of families which make this only a
secondary business. Many merely raise the worms, selling the cocoons to
the factories, and in such cases the work and strain are over in a few
weeks. The value of the cocoons raised in 1911 was estimated at
$89,001,988, which gives some idea of the great importance of this
industry to the families engaged in it. But it must be remembered that
the industry demands heavy expense and the most taxing of toil while it
lasts.
As this industry is carried on chiefly in the homes, the personal
conditions of the workers are relatively favorable, as favorable as
those of the homes. This requires therefore no special consideration.