Talking about the history of sericulture in China

Silkworms were domesticated before the Xia Dynasty. Silkworm is cultivated from mulberry pests and has created sericulture technology.

There was a "mother silkworm" in the Shang Dynasty, who was a silkworm official.

In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the silkworm god and Shangjiawei sacrificed together, and they respected silkworm affairs very much.

At that time, there were four kinds of silkworms: cup silkworm (Ailanthus altissima silkworm), thorn silkworm, chestnut silkworm and mosquito silkworm, also known as snail silkworm.

Both wild silkworm and silkworm are polygenic, and gradually evolved into diploid and univalent, mainly three-dormancy silkworm.

The Zhou Dynasty had a "silkworm-loving" system, and both emperors and vassals had "male silkworm rooms". Bath in February in the summer calendar and start sericulture on the first day of March. They have a certain understanding of silkworm growth patterns, such as bathing, the emergence of ants, silkworm dormancy, pupation, cocoon formation and moth transformation.

There are records of Song Dynasty (foil), planting (silkworm frame), basket (silkworm plaque) and shed (reed mat) on silkworm rearing tools.

From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period, parthenocarpy (spring silkworm) was mainly raised, and summer silkworm (original silkworm) was forbidden. Only one crop was raised every year to avoid excessive harvesting of mulberry leaves and mulberry leaves.

The method of raising silkworms in Zhou Dynasty was mature. The method of bathing silkworm eggs is to remove miscellaneous bacteria, boil juice with white stalks, soak silkworm eggs, and promote ants.

Silkworm house should pay attention to drainage and drying and temperature regulation.

During the Warring States period, I got a deeper understanding of the habits of silkworms, and realized that silkworms are asexual, moths are sexual, afraid of high temperature, like certain humidity and hate rain.

The age of three-dormancy silkworm is 265438 0 days.

The northern region is monogamous, bisexual (protosilkworm) and polygamous, and can hatch continuously until the end of autumn.

When a large number of fresh cocoons are destroyed by moths because they have no time to reel in silk, the method of exposing cocoons and shaking pupae is adopted.

Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the collection and utilization of wild silkworms have been continuous.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, great progress was made in seed selection and seed production technology, and a method of controlling the hatching time of silkworm eggs with low overflow was invented.

Yongjia has eight generations of silkworms: March silkworm, early April silkworm, May silkworm, late June silkworm, late July silkworm, early September silkworm and October silkworm.

There are two kinds of silkworm eggs commonly used in the north: three-lying silkworm (three-sleeping and one-sex) and four-lying regenerated silkworm (four-sleeping and two-sex).

According to body color and markings, silkworm varieties are divided into white-headed silkworm, lead silkworm, Chu silkworm, inner silkworm, young silkworm and gray silkworm.

According to the breeding time, it can be divided into autumn mother silkworm, autumn middle silkworm, old Qiu Er silkworm and late autumn old slacker silkworm (referring to southern sexual silkworm).

Cocoons are divided into silkworms and silkworms with the same work.

In the process of rearing, the ecological effects of mulberry, fire, cold, heat, dryness and humidity on silkworm growth have attracted people's attention.

When placing silkworm tools, we should pay attention to the proper density of silkworm seats, which are often clustered outdoors and indoors in rainy days. There are three forms: plane clustering, hanging clustering and outdoor tiling of Song Peng nationality.

No matter in the north or the south, there are two kinds of cocoon treatment: day exposure method and salt soaking method, and salt soaking method is mostly used for cocoon storage.

In the Tang Dynasty, silkworm rearing basically followed the old methods of the previous generation, but all of them raised multi-sex silkworms, mainly three-sleeping silkworms and four-sleeping silkworms. Silkworm bath was carried out in the field before and after Grain Rain Festival, which was different from basin bath in later generations.

Silkworm rearing tends to be perfect in the Song Dynasty, and the production process is divided into: bathing silkworm, lying silkworm, feeding silkworm, sleeping for one time, sleeping for two times, sleeping for three times, separating foil, picking mulberry, lifting, harvesting, clustering, frying foil, rearing silkworm, selecting cocoon and cellar cocoon.

The seeds were washed many times, once in the twelfth lunar month and once in the warm water before Grain Rain green. There are two kinds of warm species: human body temperature and chaff fire temperature.

Ants can be divided into goose feather powder and mulberry leaf fragrance absorption.

The feeding leaves of the ant silkworm are finely cut with a knife, and the temperature is controlled with the tender leaves of the young silkworm. The big silkworms are fed thinly, and the dung and sand are removed frequently.

When clustering, we should first skillfully pick up the early-maturing silkworms, then gather a large number of mature silkworms into umbrellas, and raise the temperature appropriately.

Silkworm cocoons are mostly collected by mixing salt. The time for farmers to store cocoons is not long, and they will come out after ten days to keep them moist.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the requirements for raising silkworms were more stringent, with emphasis on diversified rearing and proper control of the number of silkworms in summer and autumn.

Silkworm rearing in Yuan Dynasty can be summarized as ten bodies, three lights, eight fitness, three rareness and five width.

"Ten-body" refers to cold, hot, hungry, full, thin, dense, sleeping, rising, tight and slow (refers to the speed of feeding leaves), "three lights" refers to the number of leaves fed according to the muscle color of silkworms, "white light is fed, green light is fed thick (skin wrinkles are hunger), and yellow light is fed gradually"; "Eight fitness" refers to eight conditions such as light and shade, cold and warm temperature, wind speed and leaf feeding speed at different growth stages of silkworm.

"Three sparse" means that ants, boxes and terrans should be sparse; "Five light" means that the sound, smell, light, color and unsanitary factors that affect silkworm growth should be taboo.

The Ming Dynasty attached great importance to the selection of silkworm eggs and variety improvement. Bathe eggs with dew, keep eggs with limewater, salt water and other bathing methods, and eliminate inferior eggs.

The advantages of hybrid silkworm eggs were first discovered and utilized, thus "early males and late females can produce beautiful eggs".

It can be seen that in the Ming Dynasty, one or two kinds of silkworm moths could cross to form new silkworm eggs with many strong silks.

The successful experience of "export drying", that is, heating and drying with fire, was also summarized during cocoon formation in Jiahu area of Zhejiang Province, thus improving cocoon quality and relaxation rate.

It is also a successful example that the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River use ponds to cultivate animal husbandry, and the combination of water and fertilizer to plant mulberry and sericulture promotes each other under the condition of natural circulation.

At the same time, measures such as isolation and eradication were taken to prevent the spread of silkworm pus disease, softening disease and white false disease, and silkworm rearing technology had a relatively complete system.

For the utilization of wild tussah, it was mainly used for filling silk, stringing and spinning coarse silk before Song and Yuan Dynasties. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, artificial rearing of wild tussah was popularized in Denglai, Shandong Province, and the output increased greatly.

At the same time, the spinning of silk is also very successful, and the production of wild silkworm is spread all over the mountainous areas of Shandong, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Henan, Guizhou, Anhui and other provinces. There are varieties of oak, such as Tuo, Yang, Spine, Xiao, Xie, Toona sinensis, Zanthoxylum bungeanum, Willow, Ulmus pumila, Maple, Broussonetia papyrifera and Silkworm.

By the Ming Dynasty, there had been a set of mature techniques and experience in stocking wild silkworms. At the end of Ming Dynasty, Shandong tussah silk was famous at home and abroad. Since then, the production mode of artificial natural collection has changed to artificial stocking collection.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, Guangxi also set a precedent that wild silkworms were soaked or smoked in vinegar, and then cut open the abdomen to get silk. A worm can grow silk 6-7 feet long. Some people think that this is a prelude to modern man-made fibers.

On the basis of traditional sericulture technology, all localities attach importance to seed production. In the Qing Dynasty, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou and other places had local silkworm varieties suitable for local ecological conditions, among which Yuhang, Xinchang and Xiaoshan in Zhejiang were famous, and later became the manufacturing bases of modern silkworm eggs.

Technically, the high-rise shed cluster is used by the upper clan, catching with the times and avoiding the ground cluster.

"Dry export" was improved to "burn silkworms instead of cocoons".

Open the leaves when you sleep for three times, and eat the leaves two or three times to preserve the mulberry leaves, which are tough and shiny.

When the leaves are few, you can feed the silkworms with white rice flour mixed with mulberry leaves, which is white and tough.

Pick autumn mulberry leaves, dry them in the sun, grind them into fine powder and put them in a dry place. When raising silkworms, the leaves are wet when it rains, so this kind of leaf powder can be mixed with people, which has the effects of burning wet, easily satiating and saving leaves.

These are all good ways to replace food with feed.

From 65438 to 0898, Hangzhou established a sericulture science museum, learned from foreign sericulture experience and theory, eliminated particle disease, and bred a number of new varieties such as Zhu Qing, Xinyuan, Zhu Gui and Hongqing with new methods, and bred the earliest improved variety Qinggui in China, which occupied a large proportion at that time.

Later, sericulture schools and sericulture test sites were established in various provinces, which were very popular.

There are two kinds of silkworm eggs in Guangdong. Li Anping can raise seven or eight eggs a year, and Shunde can raise six eggs. Cocoons can be divided into gold and silver, and silver eggs are suitable for summer and autumn silkworms.

The silkworm eggs in the south of the Yangtze River are called jujube, and the silkworm body and cocoon type are bigger than usual.

Sichuan and Shandong adopt a kind of yellow cocoon, which also accounts for a certain proportion in China.