sor beans, and on the left a crop of rape, both of which would be harvested in early June, the ground where they stand flooded, plowed and transplanted to rice. This and the other mulberry views were taken in the extensively canalized portion of China represented in Fig. 52. The farmer owning this orchard had just finished cutting two large bundles of limbs for the sale of the leaves in the village. He stated that his first crop ordinarily yields from three to as many as twenty piculs per mow, but that the second crop seldom exceeded two to three piculs. The first and second crop of leaves, if yielding together twenty-three piculs per mow, would amount to 9.2 tons per acre, worth, at the price named, $59.34. Mulberry leaves must be delivered fresh as soon as gathered and must be fed the same day, the limbs, when stripped of their leaves, at the place where these are sold, are tied into bundles and reserved for use as fuel.
In the south of China the mulberry is grown from low
cuttings rooted by layering. We have before spoken of
our five hours ride in the Canton delta region, on the
steamer Nanning, through extensive fields of low mulberry
then in full leaf, which were first mistaken for cotton
nearing the blossom stage. This form of mulberry is seen
in Fig. 43, and the same method of pruning is practiced in
southern Japan. In middle Japan high pruning, as in
Ckhekiang and Kiangsu provinces, is followed, but in
northern Japan the leaves are picked directly, as is the
case with the last crop of leaves everywhere, pruning not
being practiced in the more northern latitudes.
Not all silk produced in these northern countries is from the domesticated Bombhyx mori, large amounts being obtained from the spinnings of wild silkworms feeding upon the leaves of species of oak growing on the mountain and hill lands in various parts of China, Korea and Japan. In China the collections in largest amount are reeled from the cocoons of the tussur worm (Antheraea pernyi) gathered in Shantung, Honan, Kweichow and Szechwan provinces. In the hilly parts of Manchuria also this industry
