and gives employment to a large number of people. The story of the annoyances to which this pioneer of silk cultivation was hands of the Company's officers, and the manner in which he was defrauded by the Rájá, will be found at length in my Annals of Rural Bengal It can only be briefly stated here that, being charged for the land he bought more than four times its market value, he soon fell into arrears with the Rájá, who made his non-payment an excuse for being himself behind with his land-tax. distrain the factory lands, as such a step would have interfered with the regular supply of the silk investment, and Mr. Frushard secured himself from arrest by living beyond his jurisdiction. The case was at length brought before the Court of Directors; and eventually, Lord Cornwallis, in 1791, ordered that all his past arrears should be for- given, that his rent should for the future be reduced by nearly one- half, and that the Collector should deduct whatever this sum amounted to from the land-tax payable by the Rájá. Since that time things have gone smoothly, and Mr. Frushard's factory, several times renewed, is now one of the most important buildings in the District annual outlay averages 72,00o, and the value of the general silk manufactures excecds 160,000. The silk is usually sold in a raw state, and finds its way to the Calcutta and European markets. The factory at Ganutiá is surrounded by numbers of smaller filatures, the silk reeled in these being either consumed in the local manufacture of piece-goods, or sent to Murshidábád, and the silk-consuming towns of the North-West Provinces and the Punjab.
Four varieties of domesticated or regularly bred silkworms are known in Birbhúm, the best silk being obtained from the bara palu, an annual worm lowing manner. formed being reserved for breeding purposes. The moths begin to emerge on the eighth day after the formation of the cocoon, and con tinuc to emerge till the eleventh day. As the moths make their way cut of the cocoons, they are put into other baskets, and the males and females for the most part pair spontaneously and at once. About the middle of the day, the males and females are separated, the males being thrown away, and the females placed on a cloth in a large basket An hour afterwards, they begin to lay eggs, and continue laying during the night and till the afternoon of the following day. The eggs are then wrapped in three or four folds of cloth and put in an earthen pot, which is Covered over with a In the following January eggs begin to hatch, those hatched each day being kept separate. The hatching extends over a period varying from 15 to 25 days according to the temperature. The worms are fed as soon as hatched,-during cxposed at the The Collector could not The The breeding of the worm is conducted in the fol The cocoons are formed in March, the earliest plastering of earth and cow-dung. February the pots are opened, and the or
