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History of Silk in Vermont When one thinks of farming in Vermont, one tends to think of sheep and dairy cows. Surprisingly, however, in the early 1800s there was a significant commercial effort made to raise silkworms here! Like other New England states at that time, the Vermont legislature enacted a bounty on silk to encourage a cottage industry for "women who had nothing better to do"! (yes, it really says that in the documents). In 1835, the state paid residents ten cents for each pound for cocoons raised here. Keep in mind, this was a "bounty", so it was paid by the state on top of whatever the silkworm raiser earned by selling the cocoons to the textile industry. Just the same, it doesn't seem like much when you consider that it takes about 4000 cocoons to generate 1 pound of silk! Yet in a diary kept by the Rev. Seth Shaler Arnold of Westminster, VT (1809-1871), a detailed account of his life indicates that with the bounty he received for raising silkworms, he earned enough to pay his taxes, repay a loan from his father and pay a woman in his parish to knit him some silk stockings. Unfortunately, he doesn't indicate the dollar amount which any of this cost, but to cover his taxes and then some must have been relatively significant. Even though the bounty increased over the span of 5 years to include twenty cents for filature (unraveling the cocoon), twenty cents for throwing (twisting the threads together) and twenty cents for weaving each pound of cocoons, the state's effort to foster this cottage industry ended by 1845. At its peak production in 1843, the state raised over 1 million cocoons. Although the climate in Vermont was just not conducive to raising silkworms and in the end thwarted the state's attempt to establish sericulture (the raising of silkworms) as a commercial enterprise, vestiges of this agricultural experiment can be seen about the state in pockets of mulberry trees (the staple of a silkworm's diet) planted to feed the silkworms. Fun Facts... the silkworm's growth from hatching to maturity, which takes only about 30 days, is the equivalent of a newborn baby growing to the size of a T-Rex dinosaur! the moth that emerges from the silk cocoon has no mouth and only lives about 3 days each cocoon is a single strand of silk about a mile long it takes 2 mulberry trees to feed 4000 silkworms to produce 12 pounds of cocoons which will provide 1 pound of reeled silk for weaving. Tussah vs. Bombyx... There are several types of silk worm that produce silk. The premiere type of silk, referred to as "cultivated" silk is from the bombyx mori silk worm and it is the softest, finest, whitest and most lustrous of the forms of silk. These silk worms are notoriously finicky eaters...eating only the leaves of freshly picked mulberry trees (and I think they really even prefer only 1 type of mulberry too). There are other relations to the bombyx mori however that are not as particular about their food and they will eat leaves that have tannins in them. This discolors (at least the weaving industry considers it discolored....I happen to love the caramel tones) the silk so it is not bright creamy white, but tan or light caramel. This silk is also not quite as fine as the bombyx, but is still lovely and takes dyes just as well, tho' the resulting color is more subdued, like earthtones. There are also a couple ways of harvesting the silk from the cocoon. If you let the moth emerge, then they bust open a hole in the end of the cocoon, which ruins the silk for the weaving industry. The weaving industry responsible for making silk fabric for clothing prefers to reel the silk, but once the cocoon is broken it can no longer be reeled. So this silk is stretched over a frame and then spun. This silk is sometimes referred to as "waste" silk, since the weaving mills don't want it. This form is what is used in the Chaiten yarn, new this spring. It is also what I sell as Silk Hankies or Mawattas, and also as silk top. There is also a video I put on YouTube which shows how the silk is harvested by making a mawatta and then how to knit directly from the cocoon. |