ore of them; if coarser fibres
not so many. He can't turn out thread that is thick in one place and
thin in another."

"That is what you or I would do," laughed Pierre. "Or at least I should.
I never could reel so fast, either."

"It winds better fast," replied Henri. "It has not so much time to
loosen or get caught. It just has to keep moving right along. If we can
get cocoons soon enough so they can be wound off before the moth has
time to come out, instead of having them cured first, they reel far more
easily. The curing affects the silk. Of course in most cases it is
unavoidable, for it would require very quick work for our agents to buy
up the products of outlying silk-raisers and get them to us before the
chrysalis matured. We should be taking a big chance of having our silk
ruined, since one never can predict exactly how long it will be before
the moth will come out. Varying conditions bring different results. It
is a pity, however, that they have to be cured. Still, the curing has
one advantage--it decreases the weight of the cocoons about twenty-five
per cent."

"I didn't realize that curing caused shrinkage."

"Oh my, yes. And perhaps you did not know what a difference there is in
the weight of individual cocoons. This depends not alone on the species
of silkworm raised, but also on the care that has been given it. A
carefully fed caterpillar will grow larger and make a bigger cocoon. The
same law holds with well cultivated flowers or with well tended live
stock. Even persons show the results of proper nourishment. It is just
so with silkworms. Cultivation tells. And not only does good care result
in larger caterpillars and finer cocoons, but also in more silk. So the
number of cocoons necessary to total a pound of raw silk vary. We cannot
compute that, except roughly. But we do estimate that broadly speaking
it takes about an acre of full grown mulberry trees to produce forty
pounds of raw silk."

"How interesting!" exclaimed Pierre. "I never thought of measuring silk
in mulberry trees."

"Not precisely in trees, but in their leaves," corrected Henri. "If you
were a scientific sericulturist, as many men are, you would know just
how many pounds of leaves you used each day; and you would work to
economize them so as to get the largest possible yield of silk from the
smallest possible outlay of leaves. All the big silk-growers manage
their business that way."

Pierre sighed.

"My mother said that too,