There are silkworms (mulberry silkworms) in the south and tulip silkworms in the north. Speaking of the Silk Road, everyone is familiar with the ancient Silk Road from the west of China to Europe, as one of the weavers of silk civilization - tulip silkworms, as a commodity and cultural carrier, the Qing Dynasty Jiaqing to Daoguang years from Shandong to Liaoning, the 17th century spread to Korea, 1877 spread to Japan, 1924 spread to the former Soviet Union, forming a Northeast Asian Silk Road with wild silk as the main trade.
Tulip silkworm, scientific name: Antherea pernyi (Guerin-Meneville, 1855), Lepidoptera macrophyllaceae In ancient times, it was called spring silkworm, quercus silkworm, oak silkworm, also known as mountain silkworm. A spitting insect , named after its fondness for eating tulip leaves. Cocoon reeling silk, mainly used for weaving tulip silk, insect body edible, can be used as medicinal materials, is a unique insect resource with important economic value in China.
Tulip silkworm, because of the tulip leaves for food, so the name of the tulip silkworm. Liaoning Province stretches from the Liaodong Peninsula in the east to the mountainous areas of western Liaoning in the west, and is full of natural silkworm farms, with Xiuyan, Fengcheng, Kuandian, Gaixian, Xifeng and Xinjin, Haicheng and Liaoyang counties in the Changbai Mountains and Qianshan Mountains as key production areas.
Tulip silkworm is a completely metamorphosed insect, a generation through the egg, larvae, pupae, adult four stages of development, only the larval stage to feed, pupae overwintering. The eggs of the silkworms are heated indoors and hatched, while the larvae are placed on the wild tulip trees by artificial management and allowed to forage and grow on their own. At the same time, strengthen management to prevent birds and animal hazards, and collect cocoons in time.
The silkworm is a silk insect of the family Silkworm Moth family. In the Jin Dynasty Cui Bao's "Notes on Ancient and Modern Times", it is said: "In the fourth year of emperor Yongguang of the Han Dynasty (40 BC), there were wild silkworms as cocoons in Dongmu Mountain (in present-day Muping County, Shandong Province). Cocoon moths, moths give birth to eggs, pebbles stones, harvest more than 10,000 stones, the people think that it is silk. Guo Yigong's "Guangzhi" of the Jin Dynasty said: "Tulips eat tulip leaves, and the people use it as cotton." "It can be seen that at least 2,000 years ago, China has used the cocoons of wild silkworms in mountain forests.
In the process of harvesting and utilizing tulip cocoons, the ancient mountain people learned about the living habits of tulip silkworms and gradually explored a set of techniques for stocking tulip silkworms, so the mountain people simply harvested wild tulip cocoons and then manually stocked them. Artificial stocking of tulip silkworms began in the past four or five hundred years by the mountain people of Shandong. The complete set of techniques for artificial stocking of tulip silkworms includes seed selection, cocoon baking, moth picking, mating, basket tying, shearing, cocoon collection and other operations.
Choosing a cocoon is the work of stocking tulip silkworms at every step. Ancient silkworm farmers relied on the sensation of eyes, ears and hands, and selected silkworms with strong and clean bodies, and stocked them in specific fields, waiting for them to form cocoons and serve as cocoons. Check it out all the time during stocking. Silkworms with spots on the back and abdomen and abnormal body color are all removed. After the cocoon is harvested, it is picked in the hand, and the light and heavy are selected, and the light and heavy body is eliminated; the sloppy clothes are ruddy and the yellow and dry are removed; the cocoon color is clear and clean is selected, and the obscure polluter is removed; the cocoon shell is pinched with the hand, and the thick and hard is selected; the soft and thin one is removed; the cocoon is shaken, and the sound in the cocoon is listened to carefully, and the voice is soft and moist, and the hard as a stone is removed. For the sake of prudence, sampling is also taken, the cocoon shell is cut, where the top of the head of the silkworm pupa is as white as fat, the pupae is cut open, the juice flows out, it is pale green, and the slightly sticky silk is healthy, and vice versa, it is a diseased pupae. After the pupae feathers become moths, one hand gently lifts the moth's wings, the other hand presses the moth's abdomen with the thumb, and observes the scaleless place, the color is not clear, that is, the disease moth. Diseased pupae and diseased moths should be eliminated. From silkworms to moths, layer by layer inspection and selection, the ancients attached great importance to the selection of seeds.
In ancient times, sericulture farmers also had the habit of changing silkworm seeds every two or three years. They believe that the local silkworm seeds are stocked every year, and after a few years, the harvest will be reduced and the cocoon quality will deteriorate, so they all buy and transport distant silkworm seeds for stocking. For example, Guizhou went to Lushan, Henan to buy a cocoon, and Lushan went to Liaoning to buy a cocoon. Silkworms are raised in Jiaodong, Shandong, and cocoons are bought in Yishui County nearby, and cocoons are bought in Liaoning, northeast China.
Baking seeds
In order to make it moth in time, it must be artificially warmed, which is called baking. Avoid coal and odorous fuels when baking seeds. It is important to adjust the temperature of the roasted seeds during the baking period and must be mastered by experienced people. Moreover, in the more than 40 days of baking, it must be guarded day and night, which is difficult for ordinary farmers to do. Therefore, in ancient times, people in various silkworm areas opened baking workshops, specializing in baking on behalf of customers. Silkworm farmers send the cocoon to the baking mill, and a baking workshop gathers more than 100,000 seed cocoons from 10 farmers, and heats them intensively, which can save labor and fuel than a single household.
People who run the baking industry set up a ventilated and insulated oven. There is a brazier in the center of the oven, and there are wooden frames on the four walls to place baskets for planting cocoons or curtain foil for spreading cocoons. Wear the cocoon 10 days after baking and remove the rosewood or curtain foil. Wear the cocoon with twine, at the end of the cocoon away from the cocoon, only through the cocoon coat, not through the cocoon layer, and then hang the cocoon string around the brazier. There are also those that are worn as cocoons at the beginning, without basket curtain foil. Whether it is a basket, curtain foil or cocoon string, it is necessary to move from time to time, change the position, so that each cocoon is heated evenly. When the spring cocoon begins to be dried, there are morning and evening due to different temperatures in different places. The spring in the northeast warmed up later, and it did not start until around the time of the Qing Dynasty. The Southwest is much earlier. According to the "Oak Cocoon Diagram", "The beginning of spring, the spring equinox moth out." ”
During the planting period, every day when the chickens are chirping, the fire is raised and firewood is added. When the firewood is first burned, there is a flame, called the yang fire, after burning for a while, the indoor temperature is high, covered with ash, so that the firewood burns slightly under the ash, and the heat is slower, called yin fire. Adjust the temperature of the oven with yang, yin and firewood to control the morning and evening of the cocoon moth.
Silkworm moths lay eggs
Silkworm eggs
Silkworms are moths that are roasted for about 40 days. Extract the silkworm moth that penetrates the cocoon shell, after examination, remove the diseased moth, distinguish its male and female, and put it in two baskets, called the picker moth. On the night of the moth, a certain number of female moths and the same number or more male moths are placed in the same basket at the same time to be paired. In some places, before the male and female moths are placed in the basket, the female moth is first lifted on a horizontal rope to make her urinate, in order to keep the basket clean after pairing, and also plays the role of drying moths.
Autumn silkworm moths and tether moths lay eggs
Autumn silkworms are made from cocoons formed by spring silkworms. Spring silkworm cocoons are already in early summer. After the cocoon is picked, it is selected, worn in a bunch, and hung on a pole. The pupae period varies with the temperature at that time, and generally moths occur about half a month. When the moth is launched, the silkworm farmer immediately catches the moth into the moth basket. However, in the "Wild Silkworm Record", it is said that a long rope is tied in the room, and it is placed on the rope with the catch. That is, the moths are first dried on the rope, and then caught in the moth basket, and the number of moths per basket is not too crowded. Male and female moths mate in baskets. The comparison of male and female moths in a basket and the mating and dismantling of moths are the same as the above-mentioned spring silkworm species.
Ancient silkworm farmers saw wild tulip silkworms laying eggs on the branches of tulip trees, so they imitated nature and created the method of tether moths, that is, after the mating male and female were dismantled, the female moth was caught, with a thin line of four or five inches long, each end tied to a moth, wrapped around the branch of the tulip tree, called a tether moth. The silkworm moth lays eggs directly on the branches of the tulip trees, and the eggs hatch into silkworms on the branches of the tulip trees. The number of tethered moths on each tree, depending on the size of the tree, determines the number of tethered moths. Fewer dozen moths, more dozens of moths.
Cut and retract the cocoon
Autumn silkworms are stocked, and after the moth is tethered, the eggs lay on the branches, and soon the eggs hatch into silkworms; after the spring silkworms are tied to the basket, the ants go up the tree. Whether it is spring silkworms or autumn silkworms, when the leaves on the tree are eaten, they must be cut and moved.
The number of silkworms on each tree in spring also depends on the size of the tree. According to the estimate of the "Acorn Cocoon Atlas", a tulip tree about 2 meters high, when tied to the basket, was about 10,000 silkworms, and after a day or two it was cut and moved to one or twenty trees, and then moved to fifty or sixty trees, and then moved to one or two hundred trees. This shows that each shear shift continues to expand the silkworm farm with age. The general spirit of the "Acorn Atlas" is that "silkworms will be densely packed in trees." But most of the silkworms are sparse. Dense is easy to manage, but it is rare enough for silkworms to eat foot leaves. It is generally believed that the autumn silkworm should be thinner than the spring silkworm.
The main task of the workers who manage the silkworm farm is to cut and move, and they must patrol the silkworm farm from time to time, and for those whose leaves will be eaten and the branches are too dense, they will immediately cut and evenly move the silkworms, and the silkworms that fall to the ground will be picked up and sent to the trees. Regarding the methods of sericulture management and shearing, spring silkworms are similar to autumn silkworms, but there are also differences. The "Wild Silkworm Record" says: "Spring silkworms like to move, and the more they move, the more they prosper", "Autumn silkworms do not like to move, and it is difficult to grow if they move repeatedly." "The ancients realized that the spring silkworm eats the old tulip, the spring drought, the leaves are easy to be old and hard, so the spring silkworm should be cut many times; the autumn silkworm eats the buds, the leaves are tender, the old hard is slower, and the air is relatively moist, so there is no need to cut and move more. Because the number of shears is not much, every time the autumn silkworm shears and moves, the silkworm on each tulip tree should be thinner.
Tussah
Whether it is spring silkworms or autumn silkworms, after the big sleep, the silkworms will mature. At this time, it should be cut into a leafy nest cocoon field so that the silkworms can be matured. In Lushan, Henan and other places, farmers with many silkworms often set up thatched huts in sheltered places, and pile up branches and weeds in the shed, called cocoon farms, and send mature silkworms to the field to listen to their cocoons among the branches and weeds.
silkworm cocoon
harvest
The silkworms are cocooned, and the cocoons are formed for two or three days before they can be dried and hard before they can be harvested. If the cocoon is harvested for planting, it is worn in a bunch, hung in a ventilated place where the sunlight cannot be directly illuminated, or spread on the curtain foil for proper preservation; not for seeding, or immediately boiled the cocoon, or thinly laid on the ground, using the sun to kill the silkworm pupae, or digging a pit, laying bamboo foil on it, spreading the cocoon evenly on it, and using a low fire to moxibust the pupa.
Silkworm pupae and tulip silkworm
Silkworm stocking is a set of stocking techniques created by Shandong mountain people in a long period of practice before the 16th century, which spread and spread to the northeast, north China and southwest China and some parts of the Yangtze River Basin in the 17th and 8th centuries. At present, the technology of stocking silkworms is that the scientific and technological workers of the sericulture industry have made great improvements to the traditional stocking technology by using modern science in this century, so that the silkworm industry has been greatly developed.