'Military report on Tehran and adjacent Provinces of North-West Persia (including the Caspian Littoral)' [‎167r] (338/610)

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the kran in Persia has decreased.
There is, however, a world shortage of silk and its enhanced
price in European markets may counterbalance the effect of the
present rate of exchange which is so unfavourable to the Persian
producer.
The following extract from a Report on Silk in January
1917 b;^ Mr. H. L. Rabino, British Vice-Consul at Rasht, is
entitled “ Sericulture as conducted nowadays in Gllan.”
“Silk worm eggs are purchased in winter, the terms being settled in writing, hut
the purchaser can take delivery at any time up to 20 days, sometimes one month
after ‘ Xauruz' (21 March) that is until the mulberry leaves have come out.
The boxes containing the eggs which until then were kept in a cool place, are
exposed to a moderate heat in some shady corner of the house. (1) They are never
exposed to the full heat of the sun which would scorch and destroy them. The
young worms are placed in pans made of dried mud and called ‘ kalebi,’ and are
fed with mulberry leaves chopped small; if the spring happens to be late, and the
worms are hatched before the mulberry is in leaf, lettuce leaves are substituted,
but the worms cannot thrive long on this food.
Two boxes of 25 grammes of grain fill 15 to 20 kalebi. The worms live for
about forty days, during which period they become torpid or go to sleep four times ;
each sleep lasts about two days, and the interval between is from 7 to 10
days. When the insects awake from their torpor they are removed from the pans
in which they have been kept, and are placed in (the ‘ tilimbar.’
From this period they are fed with mulberry leaves, whole branches being
placed on the bed on which the worm is reared ; their voracity is extraordinary,
and after each sleep they become more and more ravenous.
The “ tilimbar ” is an oblong shed formed of trunks of trees stripped of their
branches, and driven into the earth. The posts support a roof composed of the
branches of trees thatched with rice straw ; the eaves project several feet from the
walls, as a protection against the sun and rain, 6 or 7 feet from the ground, round
the shed, a scaffolding about 2 feet wide is erected, on which the proprietor walks
to feed the insects ; and, at a little lower level, the whole centre is occupied by a
platform which serves as the bed where they remain while they exist as worms.
The scaffolding encircling the bed is called the bridge, from which a curtain of rice
straw is suspended, joining the platform, to protect the silk-worms from wind.
This, with a ladder to ascend the bridge, completes a ‘ tilimbar.’ The walls
of the shed are composed of reeds, and have two openings, one of which serves as
a door, and the other, on the opposite side, affords the means of ventilation. (2)
If the weather happens to be cold, which, however is rarely the case, the place is
heated artificially.
(1) Holmes mentions that when he visited Gilan the women in general carried
the bags in which the eggs are preserved, under their arms as the warmest part of
the body. This is no longer the case.
(2) Holmes from whom this description is practically textually quoted, with
very slight modifications, mentions the ordinary dimensions of a tilimbar as
about 20 feet long, 17 or 18 broad, and 13 high ; the bed being some 5 feet from the
ground. Mr. A. F. Churchill in 1903 says those he saw generally measured 25
feet by 14 or 15 feet.
As a matter of fact tilimbars vary and are measured by the “ alish,’’ i.e., the
distance from the point of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. There are
30, 20,15, and 10 “ alish ” tilimbars made to contain 5, 4, 3, 2 boxes of 30 grammes
of grain respectively. Should too many worms have been put into a tilimbar, the
tilimbar is immediately enlarged by removing the walls further back and taking
in some of the space which is protected by the projecting eav§s.
“ A harmless snake, the Coluber Aquations, has its abode in each tilimbar.
It seldom seeks to leave the place, but ranges about it at large, most probably
destroying the vermin which might injure the worms. In some districts, the
proprietor regards this reptile with such reverence that if perchance he finds it